Wednesday, April 29, 2009

louderbach


louderbach - notes

Troy Pierce's new project out on M_nus. Techno master gets bent sinister, not unlike Brinkmann's when horses die: early-industrial cemetery jams. Killer stuff and killer cover, imagine vampires at the disco, like Bauhaus in the Hunger.

floating points - love me like this



floating points - love me like this

absolutely gorgeous downtempo lazer-funk, a housed-up remix of an 1983 original. recalls the trippy erotic depths of cole medina's beegees re-edit from last year. seriously killer tune. get busy with it.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

load up on guns, bring your friends



peter gabriel - games without frontiers

in the title track to his first solo album, peter makes it clear that if there is a distinct line between the unbridled violence of child play and the terrors of real war, he doesn't know where it is. Great edgy white-boy stiff electronic funk and sonic trickery make this a fantastic futuristic pop single, and an edit-ready jewel, key insight into peter's work prior to his outsized 80s mtv ubiquity.

the literary equivalent to this song is obviously ender's game by orson scott card.

the cinematic equivalent to this song is obviously wargames starring matthew broderick.


Friday, April 24, 2009

black rio 2




azambuja & cia - tema de azambuja

second volume from Strut of killer post-Tropicalic samba-funk. RIYL: being alive, sunshine, good moods.  "tema de azambuja" has those great floaty berlin-bowie tinny synth pads and will go well with your stunningly pleasant friday afternoon. 

"While Volume One brought together pioneers of the movement like Tim Maia, Gerson King Combo, UniaoBlack and Jorge Ben, Volume 2 digs much deeper, exploring more of the key artists and some of the short-lived bands and smaller labels of the time. Highlights include the dynamite funk / samba jam Faz Tanta Tempo by Renata Lu, a great funky cover of Gilberto Gil’s Bananeira by Emilio Santiago and a rare slice of breezy soul, Supermarket, by Pete Dunaway aka Paulistano, one of many artists giving themselves a Western-sounding name at the time.

The album is compiled and annotated by leading Brazilian music DJ Cliffy, the man behind long-running London club night Batmacumba."

Tracklist
1. Zeca Do Trombone & Roberta Sax – Coluna Do Meio
2. Renata Lu – Faz Tanto Tempo
3. Guimaraes E O Grupo Som Sagrado – Our Sound
4. Rubinho E Mauro Assumpcao – Ta Tudo Ai
5. Emilio Santiago - Bananeira
6. Watusi – Oi Gere (CD only)
7. Os Diagonais – Nao Vou Chorar (CD only)
8. Claudia – Salve, Rainha (CD only)
9. Pete Dunaway - Supermarket
10. Super Som Lord – BR Samba
11. Azambuja & Cia – Tema De Azambuja
12. Avan Samba - Ibere
13. Cry Babies – It’s My Thing
14. Balanca Povo – Novo Dia
15. Edson Frederico E A Transa – Bobeira (CD only)
16. Bebeto – Princesa Negra De Angola (Instrumental version)
17. Marlene – Sinal Vermelho
18. Sonia Santos – Poema Ritmico Do Malandro

Thursday, April 23, 2009

rick ross - magnificent



rick ross - magnificent 

birfdays was the worse days, now we drink champagne when we're thirstay..

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

malaria!



more synth-goth Neue Deutsche Welle shadows from Berlin - an all-women quintet from the early 80s, Malaria was founded by Gudrun Gut, an early member of Einsturzende Neubaten. Their song Kaltes, Klares Wasser was covered by Chicks on Speed in 2001.



Poster using a photo of Malaria backstage at Studio 54.


Interview (English subtitles) with the band when they were called Mania D


Tuesday, April 21, 2009

desire - under your spell




johnny jewel from glass candy has a side project, called desire, with a different singer, if you'll imagine his characteristic low-fi disco glitz except now warmed up, devoid of its heretofore icey glamour. 


Sunday, April 19, 2009

dirty projectors - stillness is the move



it's d'angelo's fangirl gush that turned my ears towards this, the new single from dirty projectors. oh damn. indie rock kids figured out how to do a soulful mariah carey tune, and do it the right way. It's also a great lyrical conceit for a break-up-and-move-on song. Woody Allen once famously said that a relationship is like a shark, it has to keep moving to survive. "Stillness is the move" describes the opposite situation: when you realize that even standing still is a movement, that also indecision is a decision.  Instead of waiting for you or the other person to make the call, you reach a point where having to wait is already the sign that the call has been made. I know at least one occasion when I've been that guy, waiting, without realizing it, for the other person to make a move against my standing still, and so I can understand why it's a good subject for a sad soul song, which can only attest to love's full splendor as it dissipates in the space created when two people decide to go their separate ways. 
also here's the lucky dragons remix, which is nuts, going into deep afro-savannah territory, giving the highlife guitars room to breathe and spiral. 

 



Stillness Is The Move (Lucky Dragons Remix) - Dirty Projectors

want a one-night stand? carcinoma.

100 unintentionally hilarious spam subject lines (link)

language is not on your side. most of the time it will trick you and make you think it's just there for you to use. but there are certain moments when it seems like no one is speaking, but still speaking is there. When reality has started to slough away, like a wet kleenex, and you are faced with the inhuman chatter of the real, like the sound of flutes piping mindlessly in your ear. One wonders about technology after the world ends, when among the smoldering ruins of civilization there are still electronic devices at work, sending messages to one another: PENIS POLISHING AND DETAILLING NEWSLETTER...for eternity.

PS this article is ridiculously funny. 

Saturday, April 18, 2009

grauzone




grauzone - eisbaer

"ich moechte ein eisbaer sein... / eisbaere muessen nie weinen." (I'd like to be a polar bear..polar bears must never cry.")



grauzone is a swiss post-punk/electronic group from the early 80s, prime material from the Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) scene, essentially the Deutsch incarnation of icey, metallic-inhuman electronic rock. "Eisbaer" was their most commercially successful effort, in which the singer longs for a Knutian transformation, not out of devotion to face-melting cuteness, but so that he can never cry again. It also sounds way better in German, natuerlich. "Ice Bear" being clearly more intimidating than "Polar Bear." The rest of grauzone's material is consistently shadowy, noisy and sonically inventive. For further research:


Tracklisting:
1. Moskau
2. Ein Tanz Mit Dem Tod
3. Ich Lieb Sie
4. Film 1
5. Film 2
6. Schlachtet!
7. Hinter Den Bergen
8. Maikäfer Flieg
9. Marmelade Und Himbeeries
10. Marmelade Und Himbeeries (Part Two)
11. Wütendes Glas (LP Version)
12. Kälte Kriecht
13. Kunstgewerbe
14. Der Weg Zu Zweit
15. In Der Nacht
16. Eisbär
17. Raum
18. Träume Mit Mir
19. Wütendes Glas (Single Version)

Tracks 1-4 taken from Moskau EP recorded November and December 1981
Tracks 5-15 taken from Grauzone LP recorded July & August 1981
Tracks 16-17 taken from Eisbär single recorded 1981
Tracks 18-19 taken from Träume Mit Mir single recorded 1982

special thanks to gute luft for the compilation efforts.




Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

a mountain of one - sky is folding


a mountain of one is a UK duo, and absolutely one of the standout acts in the cosmic disco resurgence. Chalk their hype up to unerring style, diverse influences, and artistic originality. Like delia & gavin, AMOO are black disco magickists, Crowleyite synth-lords, Golden Dawn analog acolytes. News of their forthcoming album is a godsend, indeed. Check out the first track on their myspace, it sounds like Beausoleil's Lucifer Rising soundtrack, for real. Seems that their dark energies also skew towards candlelit goth-folk, "sky is folding" sounds like mellow Bauhaus and the forthcoming lp also includes a cover of leonard cohen's "who by fire." 'Can't be serious' is one of the stunning tracks that first put them on the map.

a mountain of one - sky is folding (from the forthcoming institute of joy lp) 
a mountain of one - can't be serious (from collected works)

yeah yeah yeahs - zero (animal collective remix)

"dude you have a dart in your neck..."
"wait. waiit. Waiiiiittttttt..."

Saturday, April 11, 2009

sebastien and the morning-after mansion



my review of kilometer on Resident Advisor







One can't help but be charmed by the video, which seeks the man awake in a lovely house full of equally lovely pantless nymphs. Soph reminded me that it's alot like the video for Criminal by Fiona Apple. Although you'll note the gender divide - fiona: "oh my god, what did I do last night?" sebastien: "undie babes in my house again, oh well." 



Thursday, April 9, 2009

dr. buzzard - sunshower



dr. buzzard's original savannah band - sunshower

this is the original that M.I.A. sampled/interpolated. True to its title, it's a heavenly bright and smooth slice of latin-tinged sashay-disco. It makes me want to wash my clothes in Tide bleach and hang them on a clothesline. The chorus is sung by young persons, and if it doesn't melt your little heart, it's truly made of colder stuff than my own. Plus you can never go wrong with field recording / sound effects in your song, here, the sound of a fresh spring rain. The amazement we perpetually have for small children and animals is of course their innocence - it's an edenic innocence, where lack of knowledge means lack of guilt. We are constantly amazed to find the world populated by such guiltless creatures, in part because they remind us that our own psychological burdens are in part the result of the social contract, because we've agreed to be in society and not be unabomber beardos. They remind simply: I am not me, I once was otherwise, I have become this person over time, I could be otherwise again. 

Guilt is the price paid for civilization, and culture circulates around new ways of producing and relieving it. Most often, commercials work by relieving guilt: "indulge yourself!" they say. "you deserve it!" If you deserve it, you can't be guilty. The German word Schuld explains this, because Schuld means guilt and debt: if you are guilty of a crime then you are indebted to society and your punishment is your payment. Guilt also is a side effect of the American dream, and capitalism utilizes this. We Americans are taught that we can become anything we want, and effectively, we should become anything we want. We are at times caught under the auspices of a duty to constantly realize ourselves, and if we don't, it's possible to feel guilty about this - in effect, the experimental open spirit of America, once it becomes a kind of obligation, can overlap with a sort of pre-Hebraic notion of fate and fortune: in the book of Job, it's Jobs jerk-off friends who insist that if he suffers misfortune from God, it's because he deserves it somehow. 

Likewise, in a modern updated version, if you're not fully realizing yourself, then it's your own fault. This guilt can be a consumer guilt as well, of course, it's perhaps the root of one of the greatest drives to buy: to transform, to become, as in those cosmetic commercials that implore you to "discover your inner beauty!" An instance where the perverse inversions of advertising logic reach their greatest intensity: discover or realize your inner beauty by buying things that make you look nicer on the outside. Advertising is about myth-making and story-telling, this doesn't mean it has to lie, at least, it musn't lie anymore than we do all the time, to ourselves, to each other. 

Sunday, April 5, 2009

grooveshark / goodbye horses



Roth showed me this. neither of us understand how it works. Grooveshark is like a web-based itunes. Somehow it has every song, and you can access them all instantly, with a nice little menu set-up, no frills. It's like imeem except way easier to use. I have no idea if it's just finding the songs online and playing them, or if they're stored somewhere or what. You should use it, it's nuts. Then you can make a widget and bother people with it.

As an example here are several synth-pop gems that have enjoyed deep repeat status with me lately, the choice cut being here "goodbye horses" by q. lazzarus, a one-off jewel recorded for the silence of the lambs movie but inexplicably not on the soundtrack. Super-catchy and haunting, it bears that characteristic lovelorn passion that inflects the best of mopey 80s dance jams, the sort that seem to surface in early April, when the 'cruellest month' first casts traces of its melancholic spirit like pollen in the air. While the vocal may sound like a male, Q. Lazzarus is actually a husky-voiced woman, giving the track an interesting gender-bender quality that parallels its role in the movie, when it serves as the signature tune for trannie killer Buffalo Bill's mangina dance. Included on the playlist are other songs you probably know already but it'd be nice to hear them once more, wouldn't it? Especially "West End Girls." On that note, here's the Lambs clip, as well as one of my favorite Flight of the Conchords clip, their brilliant homage to "West End Girls" entitled "Inner City Pressure."






Friday, April 3, 2009

twinkle brothers - countrymen




twinkle brothers - countrymen

props to maya religious knives for this, who describes this 1980 reggae classic thusly: "Shit is fucking intense, some of my all time favorite jams—black + psychedelic, and perfect for springy Friday."

why is this record a classic? because it's really slow. The whole thing. It sounds like the twinklers nodding off while piloting a codeine-fuelled submarine to the underwater world of Zion, schools of incandescent laser fish passing the portal. Highlights include: pretty much every song, but especially "Since I Threw the Comb Away," which is up there with "I'm Not Ashamed" by Culture as great reggae testimonials to the proud militancy of having huge, unshorn shit-logs for hair.