Phoenix - Fences (Jongleur Remix)
Just feel like it needs to be said that all these "Fences" remixes are getting play now that the new Phoenix remix album of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is out and there's like 5 different Fences remixes on there. Back when I did my remix of Fences nobody was even paying attention to Fences as a track let alone as a dope template for a dance remix (or a garage "remix" in the case of the Soft Pack's version). Not that my shit is better than anybody's, that Boombass remix is aight, although the Friendly Fires remix has a pretty serious case of multiple personality. There's about a hundred others surfacing so I'm reposting mine just to get up in this hoopla.
Phoenix - Fences (Jongleur Remix)
Phoenix - Fences (Jongleur Remix)
M - Pop Muzik (Todd Terje Remix)
Shit Robot - Simple Things (Work It Out)[Todd Terje Version]
Rainy day in L.A. Not every day this kind of thing happens. Found the perfect track to accompany from a Dungen offshoot called The Amazing. These swedish dudes drop a seriously snuggly song here. Think Nick Drake, Van Morrison, 60's stuff, with a nice bit of that northern europe aloofness. The rest of the album has a couple other tracks in this vein, and some with a bit more of Dungen style psych swirl and boom.
The Amazing - Dragon
Asthmatic Kitty, the label home and Michigan outpost of Sufjan Stevens, has an interesting record series called Library Catalog devoted to music basically prepped for a utilitarian role. What that is, or turns out to be seems ambiguous. They write of series: "for possible use in films and television, background sounds for home or office, or personal needs, such as relaxation, stimulation, meditation, concentration, or elevation,” or more specifically as “accompaniment to cooking, eating, sculpting, exercising, high stakes poker, soaking, panoramic landscapes, cuddling, car chases, drawing, knitting, bandaging, romance, playing chess, or planning the rest of your life, of which this is the first day." I don't think it presumptuous to assume Asthmatic Kitty considers "listening" a crucial aspect of the whole endeavor. But I do find it a recessionarily shrewd move on their part, providing indie ambient and arty instrumental rock that seems tailor made to indie films and forward thinking TV. Then again, like many of Sufjan and his crew's ideas (I'm still pissed about the 50 states project's abandonment, and for the record I think Sufjan's noisey, electronic dabbling is terribly ill-conceived, and the BQE is a snorefest), I won't hold breath for them to come to fruition. But as an excercise in 'backgroundness' these records do fine. Some more than fine. Yuuki Matthews, who plays with Seattle's underrated Crystal Skulls is releasing Music for Savage Tropical Imagery December 8, which on the strength of "Conquerors" the first track leaked by Asthmatic Kitty, promises to be a a hazy, rueful Eno-meets-chillwave affair. Fellow Crystal Skull Casey Foubert and James McAlister, who both have solo entries into the series, come together on Music For Drums, a record that does as it a describes just with a lot more interest than you would expect. The mixing is taut, the layers rich, the compositions shifting. I've posted a smattering of teasers from a few of the other records including the Sufjan collab with Lowell Brams "Alpha to Theta" on Music for Insomnia which sounds way too close to Yoga music to my ears but seriously might get some motherfuckers to sleep. Also check out Roberto Carlos Lange's (Helado Negro) "Amazonian Pacific" which is an odd mishmash of darkwave, ambient, and noisey avant kraut grooves, but definitely works. They've amped up their release schedule for these records so keep a look out as they seem to be getting better with each.
Yuuki Matthews - Conquerors
Casey Foubert/James McAlister - Big Moth
Lowell Brams - Alpha to Theta
Law of the Least Effort - Law 2
Roberto Carlos Lange - Amazonian Pacific
Hudson Mohawke's LP Butter comes out on Warp October 8th. The Wire's Joe Muggs writes of the record, "It superimposes the most vainglorious bombast of 21st century rap/crunk/R&B with the excruciatingly precise production, jazz funk chords and cocaine treble of 1980's soul and 'yacht rock', while deconstructing the clatter and stabs of rave and turning the synaesthetic cartoon sound of P-funk into a high-definition 3D CGI IMAX nightmare." I'm not sure it's possible to beat that description, nor is it possible not to be overwhelmed by the sound he describes as it comes to you in the flesh. The record steps way beyond, or around, all the UK Wonky, dubstep cadre who systematically insist on the same types of snares and kicks and wood blocks, who mumble and pout their way on a sadsack dancefloor with stoned out intellectuals. I don't know what drugs Hud Mo is on, and I don't really know that I could figure out HOW, let alone where, to dance to these tracks (although it turns out I missed out on his show at Low End Theory a couple weeks ago). Everything seems jacked up, either too fast, too busy, too punchy, too weird. It's totally inspired and totally next level, it's just not always totally listenable. Is that possible? I'm gonna post three of the best tracks on the album, one of which ("Star Crackout") is an ambient cut that sublimely takes apart some folk recording, a very new tactic from this particular beatcrusher. But be quick because Warp is on the prowl for this one and no doubt these links will be dead by days end.
Hudson Mohawke - No One Could Ever
Hudson Mohawke - 3.30
Hudson Mohawke - Star Crackout
FYI These tracks are probably the least flamboyant on the record (to my ears). If you're someone who wishes Andre 3000 kept making records like The Love Below until ten years from now, and then time traveled back in order to deliver some of these tracks, (and I don't think I'm exactly excluded from that group) by all means get into the rest of the record.
Roj Stevens, a former member of Broadcast, has released a collection of music on Ghost Box that will take you far far into the past, into alien addled sci-fi and haunted TV sets, into tribalized exotica, into woozy trance and third person states and musical transversalities, all as envisioned by dumpy, damp midland chaps dreaming of a future in reverse. Ghostbox makes a habit of these types of vintage 60's analog obsessed records, but this one is the bravest and weirdest. It's one of the more unique sounding records I've ever heard. Krautish, Silver Apples influenced grooves sit alongside radio transmissions, alert tones, vocal snippets, synth blips and twerps from locations unknown, potentially sinister, and altogether far fucking out. If you were ever a person who found Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge" and "Kontakte" kinda funky in a really difficult way to express, you will be liberated into pure oblivion by these outer space phobia inducing miniatures. Unlike Stockhausen or any like minded early electronic pioneers, Roj keeps it stunningly brief. Which is not to say that each piece is just a etude, in fact the record has such incredible pace to it in terms of tempo and length, in terms of the simultaneous and opposing diversity and continuity of each sound world. It feels, somehow, that all these disparate pieces, with all their vexing obliquity fit to form a chaotic, spooky and beautifully psychedelic vision. Tasters choice available below but please do dive into the full experience. You can pick up the record on iTunes fr crissake.
Roj - Bongo Workout
Roj - Inhale. Exhale. Love!
Roj - Process Revealed
Roj - What I Saw
Friday Finds 9
1: Renegade - Thin Lizzy (best and most underrated classic rock band ever?!)
2: 10 Bricks (feat. Capadonna & Ghostface Killah) - Raekwon (wu stalwart takes it back to the 90's, super hard!)
3: Untitled 3 (from Clear) - James Ferraro ("hypnagogic pop" from the unadorned king)
4: It's So - Famous L. Renfroe (famous, no, drunk, yes!)
5: Neon Snakes - Fontan (alert! kraut disco!)
6: Blue Genes - The Champagne Socialists (terrible name! great garage track!)
7: We Just Won't Stop - James Curd (DFA newcomer kills it with some inspirational retro disco - is DFA the only dance label worth it's weight in trendy t-shirts and sneaks?!)
8: A Million Dollars - Stanza (raps about being broke and hating your job make me feel better about myself. especially with slick as fuck production and an embarrassingly awesomea lofi video.
9: Feather - Little Dragon (if you think 'chillwave' is for poseurs but you like the production aesthetic try this band, they actually write songs!)
10: Silly Bones - Horse Meat Disco (probably the biggest track ever!)
11: What Did I Do? - The Beets (I think we all know this feeling. What did I do? Can you save me?!! Sincerely, and simply one of the best NY bands out there - this track is only the tip of the iceberg).
12: Talamak - Toro y Moi (glofi from South Carolina....at least it's not from Florida, I'm over all these blown out bands from Tampa!)
13: Traffika - The Sa-Ra Creative Partners (as weird and inventive as the Black Eyed Peas started out as, only more rugged)
14: Ohayo Mada Yaro - Yura Yura Teikoku (psych soul from Japan. What IS this? How did it get this way?)
15: Go (Offshore Remix) - Thavius Beck (Offshore is the one to watch here, tight knit neptunes inspired beats on the next level)
16: Passing Away - Emeralds (epic 60's minimal drone resurrected with serious commitment from the drone scene's brightest group. new ep downloadable from here)
Download Friday Finds 9 here
Bonus:
Thin Lizzy video of "Renegade"
The Bran Flakes are the newest addition to Illegal Art, the only record label with the balls to handle the legalities of Girl Talk and other like minded sample heavy mashup artists. They are pretty irreverent, though not in the way Girl Talk might joyfully desecrate two antithetical musics with one fell swoop. The Bran Flakes find samples that while pretty distant in origin share a similar penchant for zaniness. Zaniness is a tough thing to pull off (just ask the Flaming Lips). You either look like you're trying too hard, or you think you're being zany when in fact you just look stupid. I'm not totally sure where this record falls, I think I would have to see these idiots in concert to know for sure. Some of the mashups are really awkward, or just plain annoying in their saturday morning cartoon enthusiasm. Like how Dan Deacon was before he got spiritual, or the really self satisfied dork patrol that thinks it's enough just to retool old nintendo's and other 8 bit relics in order to make "retro!" tech fantasies. As if they're the first ones to find real interest in video game music. Some of the references feel too close to home to be reified. I think Girl Talk gets away with using the most ubiquitous songs ever, because he's trying to be as obvious as possible, he's actually attempting to reinvent or at least deconstruct the most popular songs in American culture. I get the feeling the Bran Flakes' mission, while still largely hospitable to the listener (their self description on their website reads like 'Blues Clues': "The Bran Flakes are ready to turn that frown upside down, put a beat in your step, and a twinkle in your eye"), is more akin to that of Negativland, where cultural references points are worked to a frenzy in the hopes (hopes that are far more political in the case of Negativland) that they are eviscerated. I invariably end up kind of deflecting at the frenzy. It's all too, I don't know, Canadian. I end up craving something with a deeper sense of intent, of identity. But...there's 31 tracks on the record so really who cares if some of them are clunkers, the prevailing mood is pretty hysterical and it all amounts to a genuinely liberating sense of media abstraction albeit one we've been hearing for some time now. The best tracks on I Have Hands do one basic thing well, instead of trying to nail 7 different collages in a minute and a half. I've posted these songs, but for your interest Illegal Art has a 'pay what you want' policy for all their releases, so by all means, the next time you're on your seventeenth cup of coffee and wearing a hot dog costume, check it out.
The Bran Flakes - Jump Up
The Bran Flakes - Singing Dogs
The Bran Flakes - Van Pop
Hidden Cameras have me feeling mighty 90's today. I don't why this track "In the NA" is so damn good, it reminds of so many useless silly songs that wear out quick but in the moment are just trancedently 'pop'. What the hell does it mean to be "in the NA"? Who gives a shit I'm bopping around my living room, shut up, that's what. I usually don't post indie rock as obvious as this, but mostly indie rock isn't this good. The cheesy synth brass hook, the totally underutilized in indie rock baritone range (Crash Test Dummies excluded). This song is gonna be stupid in like a day. But today it's fucking brilliant.
I'm posting one more track off that album, that pales in comparison to "In the NA", and apes Arcade Fire pretty hard, but all in all is a pretty decent song. Also check out the video for "In the NA" below. If you have seen a more ridiculous video since Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance" (a video to which this one is obviously indebted) please do let me know.
Hidden Cameras - In the NA
Hidden Cameras - He Falls to Me
Lightning Bolt, the rISD/Fort Thunder powerhouse art thrash duo is back with a destroyer of a record called Earthy Delights not out till October but a couple tracks have leaked this week. Fitting timing for those of us in the LA area as Lightning Bolt plays this saturday at the FYF Fest. "Funny Farm" has a bone crushing almost bluegrass hook, which is a weird and awesome change of pace for them. But almost as if the song had a dialectic, this hook gets gobbled alive by a hard as fuck section clearly designed to destruct the former. It's really odd how much this song could be off an earlier, better, and harder Deerhoof record. "Colossus" pretty much honors its namesake without apology, riding a huge dirge into a speedy oblivion. In the interest of defaulting to a theme here, I have to point out the bluesyness, albeit of the Junior Kimbrough/Buddy Guy blues as weapon school, of the primary riff. Have Lightning Bolt gone traditional? On previous records, bassist Brian Gibson had an interest in circular, minimalistic riffs, ascensions and falling patterns, arpeggios, the tools of modern minimalism done up to look like speed metal. It gave the band a kind of classical rigour. Here there's an almost rootsy vibe emerging. The third track, "Sound Guardians", references something of a tradition, though not as far back as folk and blues. This time it's classic metal, almost Black Sabbath (if Black Sabbath were lit on fire, thrown into a pit of snakes, and then blasted with explosives to eternity) in its broadness and depth. There's even flourishes of hair metal guitar theatrics. Lyrically there's not a lot of change here. Brian Chippendale, the world's fastest, hardest drummer (which would distinguish him from Zach Hill - the world's fastest, gangliest drummer) still swallows his mic (literally) and half sings/shouts indecipherable discourses like a politician/street preacher with a bullhorn who is seriously spiritually unsound. But lest anyone tell you this band is a one trick pony (and those who do aren't really listening anyway), proof of progress is here, in the dirty history of rock, wrung out and juiced up once again by the duo from Providence.
Lightning Bolt - Funny Farm
Lightning Bolt - Colossus
Lightning Bolt - Sound Guardians
The german techno producer, Ada is back with a mixtape called Adaptations out on Kompakt. On it, DJ Koze's remix of the track "Eve" is transcendent. While so many brights lights of the minimal house and techno scene are acting all monkish and apocalyptic, Ada reminds us that techno is pure, beauty seeking, repetitious fun. While Vladislav Delay's new record, someone who used to understand this base level of aestheticized desire, smacks of every hack sound art installation made in a thousand converted gallery space warehouses in Berlin, and everyone and their mother is making ambient records that take a half a day to put together, Ada is doing gorgeous, pristine things with the basic structures of dance. Sounds that still retain heft and bite. Sounds with transitive charm. Sounds with swooning capabilities. Who doesn't want to fall in love on the dancefloor? Who would rather explore the inside of a sound with scientistic precision?
Ada - Eve (DJ Koze Mix)
Vladislav Delay - Musta Planeetta
Jim O' Rourke has a new album, his first in 8 eight years. It's a single near 40 minute piece, like a sort of folk suite, or just a multi-movement work with many reoccurring themes (I have a problem with pop's use of the term 'symphony', which really refers to the use of the orchestra as an instrument). O' Rourke is an ex member of Sonic Youth, and an old stalwart of the experimental, free jazz and improv scene in Chicago (certainly the most vibrant place in the country for that music for the past decade). But he's also just as well known as a producer and mixer, having mixed Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Joanna Newsom's Ys, and produced Wilco's Ghost Is Born and countless other records. This is an absolutely gorgeous record. The mixing is flawless: it's clean as a whistle, and don't expect to be able to listen at a low volume or vast portions of it will go unnoticed. One would miss not only the detail and thoughtfulness of the orchestration, which is stunning (check out the haunting horn section around 9:30 minutes, just to start), but also simply because O' Rourke hasn't compressed the shit out of everything. so like a classical record, there are sections that are very quiet and section that are quite loud. In form, The Visitor harkens back to a lot of John Fahey's folk classicism. But it dips into so many other styles and textures, and generally plays around so much, that it escapes the religious stoicism of some of Fahey's long form works. Currently my favorite section of the piece begins around 18:30, where out of nowhere a rolling, almost martial beat, a flourish of banjos, and a brass choir tear the roof off the barn, so to speak. Two minutes later, the arrangement has morphed into something so utterly nostalgic and prescient, it's hard to remember just how you got here, through all this twisting and turning, onto a plateaux of some kind, adrift. It's really a three movement work, with the first movement running through a gamut of themes and textures, trying them on for size, the second movement, which moves much more directly, beginning at 18:30 and running through a gradual wilting meltdown before eliding with the third mvt. at the the finger picking figure which picks up at about 30:00. The third mvt gains momentum, building into most exuberant portion of the whole piece before whispering off with a long piano postlude. For those of you with problems with something as overtly beautiful as this record, please drop your b.s. angsty posturing and curl up in bed, or laze in your backyard and listen to this full through, and then tell me it didn't soften you, just a little, in the hardest and most formidable of places.
Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor (link removed at the request of Drag City)
Friday Finds is back. Numero 8.
Highway Memorial Shrine - Nodzzz "illegally cute lofi garage"
Black - Dam Funk "LA's inheritor of all thing funkadelic"
true enemies & false friends (yesteryears suite) - Klimek "a brass fanfare in orbit"
Laughing Owl - John Zorn "Zorn made another lounge album, woot woot!"
tryouts - Javelin "soundtrack to your trip to the aquarium"
Girls - Doe N Reezy "in what club do girls get crazy to songs like this?"
Candy Girl - Trailer Trash Tracys "biggest snare sound ever, and heart breaker of a tune"
Open Up the Watergate (Let the Sunshine In) - Bert Jansch "who knew politics could sound this warm"
Apology To Pollinateurs - Karl Blau "psych funk, from a K records all star"
Don't Need No - Pink Dollaz "the anthem from LA's 'jerkin' scene"
Feel It All Around - Washed Out "dayglo beats from newcomer outta South Carolina"
Gold Light - The Pink Noise "android Fonzie posturing"
The Laurels of Erotomania - Cold Cave "the best new dark wave. FYI Erotomania is a type of delusion in which the affected person believes that another person is in love with him or her"
Last One Awake (Friend Version) - Memory Cassette "topical tropical"
Trap Goin Ham - Pill "...like two day old shit....nope, harder than that. check out the insane video"
No Hello - Illuminations "what the world wants old Wilco to sound like"
Madagascar - Lake "Jill's jam"
Download the zip here
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