Occam's Razor

Favorite 20 seconds of the day

2009-05-13T14:50:00.000-07:00

(Via)

On being a geek and the possibility of knowledge

2009-05-12T14:11:00.000-07:00

I'm pissed off at people who brag about being geeks, cause geeks are "cool" now for a while, and they use it to leverage and capitalize on other people's true awkward coolness. This is nothing new, as this is precisely how fashion works, but it's kind of sadder: geeks are indeed a bit obsessively miserable. They've been socially ridiculed for centuries, and most importantly: they've actually *achieved* their status. No one chooses to be a geek, and you won't see any real geeks bragging about it. I think I'm a geek because I get excited when I see clean code, because I literally spent 2/3 of my waking hours playing video games, because when I first heard "Losing My Edge" (think it was 2003) I checked every Google search result (and there were some) to see what people said about it. I could go on, but it would be embarrassing for the both of us.

If you're not a geek, don't steal someone's genuine misery. It's personality theft of the worse kind. The digital commodities age has led us to believe everyone wins when information is replicated. This is why downloading music makes sense to everyone. Does it really matter if both of us have the same data? In the digital age, there's no single physical "source" that one can claim. This falsely creates a collective épistémè (possibility of knowledge), in which it is believed everyone can (or needs) to know everything, to *be* everything. In other words: when everything's a copy, "everything" becomes cheaply accessible. But thievery is still a double-edged sword. When you steal something, even if you merely create a mirror of it - a copy - something still gets stolen FROM someone. When you call yourself a geek, you're actually stealing the possibility of someone else's own geekness.

[This is inspired by a real stupid video someone did, that gathered a bunch of Web 2.0 heads who celebrated their faux-geekness, and by the excellent post Marco Arment wrote that followed it.]

Hello

2009-04-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

These days, I mostly tweet here (follow me.) I have plans to go back to longer form writing in one way or another, but I just wanted to share some musical findings.

Okay, so, some of the stuff I really like right now:

Tony Lionni -- Some newcomer who has that spiffy futuristic Detroit Techno vibe, sounds a bit like Omar-S, Keith Worthy, etc.

The OOFT crew -- The Revenge, 6th Borough Project, etc. Bunch of re-edits that are so good it almost sounds like a whole movement, like the new electroclash or something, but in a disco way. I think too much of that sound, as its kinda idiosyncratic, can get old, but moderated right it's really amazing and uplifting.

Jack Penate -- Yeah, that "Tonight's Today" track is great of course, albeit bit stale in a way. The remixes are great though.

Leo Zero -- The guy from A Mountain of One, anything he touches becomes gold.

Bottin "No Static" -- Great new Italo, immediate classic, Bottin is gonna do well.

Originals compiled by Mark 7 -- Another great comp in the Originals series done by Mudd, lots of unclassics and obscurities from this amazing DJ.

Shit Robot "Simpe Things" -- The robot is back, and the new track has its signature sound plastered all over it, but he did this old school house thing, it's pretty lovely.

Fern Kinney "Tonight (Channel 83 edit)" -- Huge classic with a little delicate and elegant edit, the tune is amazing.

2008-10-24T02:51:00.000-07:00

Some things:

1. I like Hipster Runoff. Visually, it resembles the ridiculous "blog house" type blogs, but thematically, it's a brilliant parody on the medium, that type of blogs, and life itself. A while ago, its tag (it changes frequently, being "I am the meme economy" now-- all too clever for simpleton bloghouse-esque) used to be "So random, but authentic in a post-meaningful kind of way". That kind of sums it up: it IS random (addresses everything from memes, to tech, to fashion, to MGMT remixes, to whatever), but everything together conjures something SORT OF meaningful, but not really (which is the most you can get nowadays). Talking about hipsters or hipster lifestyle (the saddest anti-movement of this post-authentic era) is basically essential if you want to talk about today's world, and Hipster Runoff does it well by satirizing them. It's not a blog in the traditional sense, it's more of a sadistic art show-- there are no posts-- instead you get self-referencing meta-posts in the nature of "Should I post more about... ?". Saying more would damage the context I'm trying to create here, as it's all too self-referential to talk about seriously in a paragraph. Just head over there, give it a chance and enjoy the great somber-but-honest comedy. Also: the design is just hilariously fantastic.

2. I like Rososo.com. Rososo is labeled the "peaceful newsreader". Rososo comes from RSS, which is the 'push' technology geeks (hi Dave Winer) thought was a good idea, but instead - as usually happens when geeks create technology - became a horrible burden on people. Basically, RSS makes sure you will know of all new posts on your favorite websites and such. In reality, it creates a terrible mass of information, creating what the Rososo homepage calls "accumulation of obligation and guilt". I almost couldn't describe the problem with RSS readers today better-- and I've actually had the same idea (with a couple of different features), but I really like it. It's well-executed, simple, the design is kind of silly but makes its point, and most importantly - it gets the job done. Basically, it hides all the bad information (number of posts you haven't read, and other stuff), and gives a nice list of fresh websites, with no specific links to posts. All you have to do is click. That's why if you're an RSS whore, if you read too many blogs for your own good, this humane technology is what you need. Give it a chance as well.

So, now I'd say the next step in technology in the western world is for technology itself to take the role of parents-- educate us, take care of our (mental) health. This anti-technology is about CONCEALING, rather than EXPOSING (you have 142 unread blog posts! good luck!). It's about education and support, instead of letting us succumb to our overtaking caprices. Why is this necessary? This is the world today, and this is exactly what it needs. We're not evolutionary prepared for the tech we surrounded us with, and this is the essential step towards a peaceful - yes, indeed, peaceful - world.

3. I like BuzzFeed.com. The internet is a weird place. There are so many ideas, so many thoughts, so many cultures, that you're really sadly left with none. BuzzFeed tries to fix that mess, by addressing all of that as "memes", giving it that sort of context, etc. That type of editorial mindset is almost all you really need to have a great product (that's what Hipster Runoff does, too) -- choose your subject intersection right: anything goes, but in a good way.

4. I really like Krautrock. And Holger Czukay (here's "Persian Love", Movies 88'). I know, everyone likes Krautrock. Everyone can tell you how amazing Can is. But what I'd like to bring to the table is this: There's something about this sound, and Can in particular, that's very relevant to today. First, they understood space (minimal techno, anyone? etc) so well. I can see that their use of space in rhythms and melodies reflects very well in modern design, the 'less is more' approach, etc. But that's pretty trivial-- take a broader perspective on their unique sound-- the way they approached music, from almost a simultaneously listener-musician outlook, i.e from the ears outwards, or something of that nature-- is that kind of awareness everyone tries to reproduce these days (which, again, Hipster Runoff tends to refer to a lot). It's no coincidence that their astounding drummer, and one of Can's founders Jaki Liebezeit is known to be described as "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral". Need I really mention James Murphy here?

5. I love DJ Harvey. Watch this:
That's House of House, BTW. Saheer Umar & Oliver Spencer (of Still Going fame). Out soon on Whatever We Want Records. Great-great tune, but that's not the issue. In an obsessive diggers-collectors-eBayers-Internet-seekers world, mega-stoner DJ Harvey seems like the gems FIND him. The highly obscure, unsung, sought-after pieces of forgotten, unclassical, super-rare music gold just finds its way to his sexy bearded vinyl case. The title 'crate digger' implies hard labour. Effort. Sweat. Harvey? He simply has an epic taste. It's all his, he's the music he's playing-- not just the DJ. As a pioneer of disco re-edits, he could laugh in the faces of hopeless "Nu Disco" (bleh) kids today. But he doesn't. Harvey is indeed amazing, but I warn you now: do not listen to anything by him. Not until you've established yourself. You're gonna be scared of DJing for a long time, and try to cluelessly imitate his style. Bad idea.

6. I still like Twitter. The world is having a constant and steady panic attack. "Where's everyone?", we ask ourselves an insane number of times during the day. "Has everyone disappeared? What's everyone doing?". Twitter does exactly that: much like the peaceful Rososo, it validates your existence an infinite number of times. That so-called ambient intimacy relaxes and calms your panic attack down a bit, in tiny doses everytime. It's essentially that anti-technology that's there to make you peaceful. What's Tal doing? Oh, he's having dinner. I feel better now.

7. And I like Tumblr. A lot. Why? Because it's just so cool.

8. Finally, I also like Lexx's mixtapes. Scattered over the web. Look for them.

Podcast! Music! Radio! Hebrew!

2008-07-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Fellow Israeli readers, I have a new podcast show that features some Hebrew babble and great music, check it out here: http://ourpodcast.tumblr.com/

Hope you enjoy it! Feedback is welcome.

-T

Unrelated

2008-07-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

This is quite irrelevant to the nature of this blog, but I still gotta try. I'm looking for people who are interested in cyberpunk culture and were active participants in one way or another in it. That's web 1.0 type of stuff, IRC and Phrack magazine. Looking for people who think there might be a connection between post-cyberpunk and post-modernism, between Creative Commons, Richard Stallman, Napster, Wikipedia, Kalle Lasn & culture jamming, mudge (from MIT) and buffer overflow exploits, Hackers the movie, Derrida, Lacan. And even: sw_r, h4g1s, u4ea, Solar Designer, The Mentor, b4b0. I believe we need to chat for a bit about something important. Please contact me ASAP.

And for the people just looking for some great music:

Wild Rumpus - Purple Somersault // Bitches Brew

Pretty perfect beach jam...

Brilliant, of course

2008-07-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

(via Are)

Sounds of the summer #1

2008-07-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

Parlour

Talking about the 'Amor' song/re-edit/track/cosmicthingy, right?

This summer is going to be great. I feel it.

Personal statistics

2008-07-05T14:44:00.000-07:00

This is mainly for personal use, actually. Anyway, some numbers:

1. Special forums I visit a lot during the day: 2
2. Music blogs in my Google Reader: 70
3. Music blogs I go over that are not in my Google Reader stream: 90
4. Other blogs I check everyday, a couple of times a day: 7 (among them: Valleywag, Fimoculous, Waxy, Laughing Squid, Polls Boutique and Lifehacker)
5. Tumblrs I check: about 40
6. Other blogs I visit once a day: 12
7. Social networks I'm addicted to: 1 (Twitter. Facebook too, a lot less though)
8. Big music magazines I check: 3
9. Personal online activities: this blog, a Tumblr & Twitter
10. Games I play: 1 (Quake 3)
11. Games I plan on playing: 2 (once I finally get to installing CoD4 and Warcraft 3)
12. Internet TV/video podcasts I watch: 5 (among them: 1938 Media, Blank White Cards, Pop17, Jake And Amir)
13. Record stores: 2 (Juno's RSS for disco records and Phonica)
14. Local magazines & blogs: 15
15. People I follow on Twitter: 211 (among them: Mike Arrrington, Jason Calacanis, Yermam, Loren Feldman, Biz Stone, Mat Honan, Charles Forman, Alex Albrecht)
16. Blogs that I bookmarked to check out later: 37 (roughly)
17. Tabs on my Firefox right now (saved sessions as well): 103
18. 'Refresh' per day: 32842839

Oh well.

Twitter alert #2

2008-07-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

So, are you on Twitter yet? If you aren't - sign up and follow me! Lately I've been talking about the magnificent Aeroplane remix of The Shortwave Set, the debut Toby Tobias album on Rekids, Chemical Brothers "Electronic Battle Weapon 10", "Space Oddities" compilation on Permanent Vacation, Mudd's mixes, Muxtape, Ewan Pearson's blog, 40 Thieves and more!

More music

2008-06-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

I find these posts most fun to do!

- Mudd's Tea & Biscuit mix and Mystery Mix
- "Space Oddities" on Permanent Vacation (truly & by far highly excited about this)
- Death Before Distemper 2 comp on DC Recordings
- new Peter Visti on Eskimo
- Todd Terje as Wade Nichols on RVNG
- Dixon edit of Ann Brun "Headphone Silence" the Henrik Schwarz remix
- Glossy mix from the Versatile blog
- Lindstrom "The Long Way Home" the Prins Thomas edit
- Girl Talk "Feed the Animals" LP
- Grand Popo Football Club "My Territory" remixes
- new Recloose album on Sonar Kollektiv
- Toby Tobias "The Feeling" and other fresh cuts
- 40 Thieves mix over at Beats in Space
- Idjuts edit of Janet Jackson "R&B Junkie"
- Greg Wilson's new 2020 Vision mix
- The Time and Space Machine stuff

And more things haven't got the time to sort through...

June Chart

2008-06-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

The Dissident Records compilation // Dissident
Morten Sorensen - Start Something // Tirk
Kasper Bjorke - Doesn't Matter (The Juan Maclean Remix) // CDR
The new Bill Brewster edits // CDR
Discodromo - Cosmorama (Ace!!!) // Internasjonal
Toby Tobias - The Feeling // Rekids
Studio - Yearbook 2 // Information
Padded Cell - Word of Mouth // DC Recordings
Mike Dunn - Phreaky MF // Robsoul
Phantom Slasher - Nicoteen // Noid
Soft Rocks - Disco Power Play //
Waltz - Folkesta (Prins Thomas El Skumlo Miks) // Loose Joints
In Flagranti - Firmly Planted Memories // Codek
Phil Collins - Im Not Moving (Idjuts Edit) // CDR
David Byrne - Make Believe (Acid Mambo Edit) // CDR
David Rubato - Circuit (Aeroplane Remix) // CDR
Kool DJ Dust - The Quest //
Bot'Ox - Babylon By Car (Richard Sen Remix) // I'm A Cliche
Mystery Jets - Two Doors Down (Pilooski Remix) // 679
Rubies - I Feel Electric (Tiedye Remix) // Italians Do It Better

Oh, and one incredibly special mix I'd love to say more about later.

I'm off to Sonar festival in Barcelona for a couple of days, hopefully come back with brilliant music for this hot summer.

Epic Fu

2008-06-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

Since Twitter killed the blogger in me, I'll stick to linking around to fun places on the web for this post:

1. John Daly, John Daly, John Daly. The guy is on fire. After I fell in love with his works (the Santana one in particular) that he half-seldom features on his re-edits blog, and "Move" (via the wonderful Keytars & Violins blog), which is a real destroyer, I really can't wait for his LP. Here you can listen to "Solitaire", alongside other great gems (new Mark E, Casinoboy, 40 Thieves, etc). Great radio show/record store, by the way.

2. 2nd part of the latest Beats in Space show is full of new stuff: new T&T remixes (Sweeney + Goldsworthy, which means Goldsworthy has 3 remixing aliases now), Invisible Conga People, 40 Thieves remix, Discodeine, and more.

3. By the way, what do you think of the new BIS T-Shirt? Didn't like it that much, I personally prefer the Simian Mobile Disco one much more.

4. Stickydisc! Is it going to be Eric B's year? Babytalk is blowing my mind right now, with an emphasis on that Hercules & Love Affair remix of 'Chance'. By the way, have you noticed the same pattern in Andy's remixes as well? The vocal sample looping he did in 'Whispers', 'A&E', and here too (oh, and as a layout for his own mad 'Classique #2' 12"). Not that it's a bad thing, I suppose an artist's fingerprint is something you mostly see today in the likes of Carl Craig (via Daughters of Invention).

5. The forgotten Smylonylon mixtapes are probably among the best tapes in the world (via Dalston Oxfam Shop).

6. Juju & Jordash are two ex-Israelies with an epic taste (which is almost an oxymoron round these parts), their latest mix effort for Trackwerk is really good, and the site also features an ace a-la Cosmic mix done by none other than Andy Weatherall (via Trackwerk).

7. Yura Yura Teikoku are brilliant.

8. The Virgins:

9. Are the Holy Ghost! remixes what the old DFA ones used to be? RCRDLBL, which is becoming a rather cool digital label sort of thing, is streaming the epic (!) remix of Moby's 'I Love To Move In Here' (via RCRDLBL).

10. PERFECT SUMMER JAM: Steel An' Skin's 'Afro Punk Reggae Dub'.

11. Wrapping up with ultra-classic Italo action in the form of Barry De Vorzon's 'Baseball Furies Chase', which - excuse my ignorance - sounds like a wonderful parody on John Carpenter's behalf (via Perfect Love Affair).

<3

2008-06-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

Imagination "Lights & Music"
Moby "I Love To Move In Here (Holy Ghost! Remix)"
Discodeine "Joystick (Tomboy Remix)"
Fontän "Early Morning"
Led Zeppelin "Trampled Underfoot (John Daly Edit)"
Simian Mobile Disco "It's The Beat (Shit Robot Remix)"
Babytalk "Chance (Hercules & Love Affair Remix)"
King Crimson "Elephant Talk (Mix)"
The Zombies "Time Of The Season"
Invisible Conga People "Cable Dazed"

The medium is the message in less than 140 chars

2008-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Three quick things:

1. Follow me on Twitter, especially if you're a blogger or into really good music - we can start our blogger's thing there and push all the tech geeks away a bit. It's a really nice platform for exchanging tips and thoughts about music. Also, I suggest you sign up so I can follow you as well. I wouldn't want an army of passive stalkers.

2. For those of you who don't see why Twitter is the most interesting and exciting idea online in the past 5-6 years (yep, even more than Facebook in a lot of ways), this little flash-based website concept can do a better job than a long and tedious (albeit quite thorough) post of mine. Um, which will definitely arrive later.

3. This week I'm gonna be listening to: the Discodeine mix of Photonz (thanks d-i-r-t-y!), the fabulous Syclops album on DFA, Andy Weatherall's new "Watch The Ride" mix (amusing to see that even he has gone the "rock band playing disco" path, so to speak), Low Motion Disco remixes, the new Jona on Planet E, the new Mark E (the dude rocks), Booka Shade remixes, Osborne's album, new Quarion 12", John Daly edits, Diskjokke's edit of Harry's Gym, Hercules & Love Affair remix of Yazoo, Munk LP, Brennan Green remix of Professor Genius, and much more.

Slagsmalsklubben, basically

2008-04-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Whoa, this shit has the most exploding energies I've seen in a long time.

Happiness

2008-04-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

Those Norwegians! Again!

My listening routine for these days:

Lullabies in the Dark - Song For Marie & Elise (Aeroplane Remix) // Eskimo As the new Aeroplane remix, I think everyone realized by now that those two Belgians ('the new Glimmers') have a fetish for predictable, delicious, multi-layered a-la space melodies. It's actually fine as long as we still want to get on their aeroplane. I'd add here that the Belgians seem to like formulaic sounds: The Glimmers' tendency is for over-produced "disco" ('Nu-Disco') and Soulwax is, well, known for their very own pop-saturated over-produced formula. Over-produce. Over-produce! Ok, that was the last time.

Quiet Village Project - Can't Be Beat // !K7 The album of film editor Joel Martin and UK's brightest techno talent in ages Radio Slave is finally out, and it's a really great record. One of those early released you're gonna hear lots about in 2008. Though most of the songs were previously releases on Whatever We Want Records, it's still fun listening to it all in a complete album format. It actually makes the most sense for a record like this. I think the thing about this record is that it was made by people who are music listeners more than they are musicians. In a weird modern twist, this sounds better than most self-proclaimed musicians sound today. Something about the combination of the gifted Berlin School producer Matt Edwards and movie buff editor Joel Martin create the right atmosphere for something that otherwise would be viewed as filthy Chill Out music. There's of course lots more to say here that I hope to say later.

Noze - Danse Avec Moi // Get Physical Creatively titled "Songs on the Rocks" album is out on Get Physical too, and it's a great - complete - piece. They're French, they aren't afraid to steal hooks from "Strings of Life" and they have the most joy of life and shiny eyes in a second of a song that I've heard in a very long period of time. The LP's crispy as hell, I'd call it "drunk electro" but it sounds like it was played by the most expensive lo-fi orchestra ever. "Ethiopo", one of the closing tracks, is one cleverly composed epic that reminds me of classics llike "Throw" with its smart arrangements.

Jose Gonzales - Killing For Love (Todd Terje Mix) // CDR Terje is on fire. As seen in the video embedded above, he's the stand-out star of the Norwegian scene right now. This mix endorses some of the most tried and tested ideas by colleagues Prins Thomas, Lindstrom, Rune Lindbaek, Mungolian Jet Set and more. None of them really have Terje's charm, the one that's going to make him a worldwide name. I know that in some places he's ironically called "The Todd", but I definitely see why. If Villalobos is the poster producer hippie for the minimal crowds, Terje is giving us great disco.

Luke Solomon - Demons (Brennan Green Remix) // CDR Uplifting, emotional and amazingly good track from Luke Solomon & Brennan Green. This kind of perfection in music can make me shed a tear. Jeez, excellent stuff.

Kawabata - Persuasion // Drumpoet Community Well, I like Lexx (aka Kawabata). He's a cool guy - does both creative disco edit production, and contemporary house. Sadly, I find most of the things happening in dance music right now rather boring - techno isn't vital as before, house is pretty much dead for a long time, and "electro"/"blog house" aren't very worth mentioning. It's sad but true - Headman, Kitsune, even Fluo Kids (!) aren't at the top of their game. So yeah, I think you should sample some Kawabata.

Goldfrapp - Happiness (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Remix) // CDR When all fails, we're always left with Erol Alkan. Good old Erol, and mate Richard Norris, steadily produce new vitalized dance content. I feel they're just getting better, just like their previous effort - the Late of the Pier remix - this is big. The piano chords sound amazing, the psychedelic atmosphere is still dominant, and Erol is proving again he understands the art of "club" from extremely many different and exciting points of view. He's constantly pumping life into dance, connecting all the right dots for us. Erol is a dance rockstar, and intellectual. He has the theory complete with the practice. Really happy he's playing Sonar this year, and I hope to hear him there. Happiness.

ELSEWHERE: I really like muxtape - great design and funny idea. Also, the lovely Stephane has got a mix I made for his blog up there. Check it.

Someone sent this mix in

2008-03-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes. Some random fellow named 'Celery Moon' sent me this mix, and it's pretty nice. The guy's doing some stuff for NYC hipster stable Misshapes. There's not so much to say (I cut off the promotional links too) except check it out (also: of course we all love Fujiya & Miyagi, Juan Maclean/Prince Language, etc). Later - even more posts.

Good Morning Stardust II Mix

01 The Black Dog - Floods V3.1 (Bass Soldier Remix)
02 Fujiya & Miyagi - One Trick Pony
03 The Embassy - New Plans
04 Scott Sunn - Emergence (Let's Go Outside Remix)
05 Orbital - Sad But True
06 Sasha Dive - Annihilating Rhythm
07 Deadmau5 - The Reward Is Cheese
08 Toddy Terry - Get Down (Kenny Dope Remix)
09 D1 - I'm Loving
10 Future Sound Of London - Hardhead
11 Feadz - Brand New Car Instrumental
12 Quando Quango - Love Tempo
13 Alphabeat - Fascination (Linus Loves Edit)
14 Celery Moon - Drugs v. 1
15 The Juan Maclean - Happy House (Prince Language Dub)
16 Pest - Pat Pong (Solid Groove Remix)
17 Martin Landsky - Man High
18 The Rapture - The Sound (Max Pask Mix)
19 Charles Schillings - Spin It Right
20 Infamous Upstarts - Everything In It's Wrong Place
21 Eric Prydz - Sweet Genesis
22 Kylie Minogue - Wow (Death Metal Disco Scene Remix)
23 Buy Now - Bodycrash
24 Hercules And Love Affair - Athene
25 Let's Get Invisible - Spices Of Love Chesty (C.M. Quick Edit)
26 The Teenagers - Sunset Beach (CFCF Remix)
27 Yannick Labbe - Gallieni (Skwerl Remix)
28 Midnight Juggernauts - Nine Lives
29 Autechre - Altibzz

Wonky is a state of mind

2008-02-29T13:13:00.000-08:00

Justus Kohncke - Parage // Kompakt Some people say: fuck re-edits. Justus, a pretty underrated character, makes great disco - new, fresh, original - with all the familiar mannerism, while keeping everything so easy going. This track is fun, meaningless, and has a very clean and soft production. It's wonky, but not in a way that gives you caries. The next track I'm posting is a bit wonkier, with a fat layer of cheese on top, which can possibly jam up your veins. Being wonky is a double edged sword: it's a good way to get the listener's attention, but if done incorrectly - it makes you look ridiculous. Don't wanna be rude, but that's what happens on some (well, most) of the stuff The Glimmers do on their own (not talking about remixes/edits), and - alas - some of the Reverso 68 stuff, and I suppose you could put Partial Arts' 'Telescope' on that list too. Although I do want to point out LSB's stuff (Pete Herbert and Baby G) is really really good, and they manage to take the predictability factor out of the equation, and assemble disco grooves that sound about 99.9% complete (see their 'Original Highway Delight', based on Michael Heart's 'Some Girls' for reference).

Mugwump - Boutade // Misericord Both of the tracks I'm posting today have great names - Parage and Boutade. That's cool. This song, as I said earlier, is much wonkier. But I think I'm in a real wonky mood right now as I've been basically listening to these two most of the time lately. I guess this state puts you in a certain mood which is relaxing and fun, and that's what I probably need. It's coming out on Ewan Pearson's (of the aforementioned Partial Arts fame with Al Usher) new label Misericord. It's quite effective, big chords, violins, everything. I suppose this track could dance nicely with the walls of a club. I expect more cool stuff on this label, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

The Juan Maclean - Happy House // DFA Obviously I can't share this one (don't want neither pesky EMI lawyers nor the beloved J. Murphy on my back), but you've all probably heard it, whether it was on Sweeney's show or Juan's podcast for RA (look them up), or someplace else - this track is irresistible. Could possibly be the fact my girlfriend has been talking about it ever since she heard it - but it's certainly one of the biggest hypes of 2008 (alongside Hercules & Love Affair and the next Soulja Boy single... or something). It's out on Monday (pre-order it at juno or anywhere. Now!). Meanwhile, I've found some very interesting interviews with the likes of James Murphy, Morgan Geist, Mike Simonetti, DJ Harvey, Thomas Bullock of Rub&Tug and more for you to read. I might write about them too, as they address rather fascinating issues about the relations between disco and punk (and dance/rock in general). The links are over the great Daughters of Invention blog here.

A MacBook update

2008-02-22T16:35:00.000-08:00

Nothing serious, I just wanted to let you all know I bought a new MacBook. That means better, Macier posts from now on, which I'll probably be typing in Safari. Or FireFox. Haven't decided my web browser of choice yet. More updates later.

Come on darling

2008-02-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (Ashley Beedle Re-Edit) // White Trying to keep a good post rate here, I might have some filler-posts. I think I'm keeping a nice ratio so far. This edit is really good, actually. I'm taking it from my archives, it's nothing I stumbled upon just now, or a real new discovery of mine. It's also not a musical milestone for me. Anyway, the drum programming is ace-- kinda reminds me of 'Nightflight to Venus' by Boney M. It's pretty epic, definitely puts this classic in a huge perspective. Also, check out the Italo-tailored cover of this song by Chromatics. More killer posts soon!

Mixes are our porn #1: Let No Man Jack's mix

2008-02-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

Stéphane, a fellow blogger and friend, is a French Literature Professor from Montreal. He has many students who adore his lectures about Lacan and the gang, et al. He also listens to cooler music than me, usually a very long time before I find it. I normally have to beg him to get a dose of the fresh music he stacks. We have been messing around for ages, but now we decided to take it to next real level: he conducted a mix for the blog!

Our tastes are regularly different: he prefers flamboyant electro (more Larry Tee, less Anthony Rother) and techno, and I'm into flamboyant disco. He's also a bit more flamboyant than I am. Still, this Professor has seriously impressive selections, and an edge most of the kids coming up from behind can only wish for.

This mix features some of the better grooves of late, all quite Italo-inflicted, and diverse in the most delightful sense. You have the new Hercules & Love Affair remix of classicist Chaz Jankel, that new sought after SMD remix of Armand Van Helden, David E Sugar on Kitsune, new Zoot Woman, and many more.

Let No Man Jack's mix for Occam (megaupload link)

Tracklisting:

Ajello, Living with Passion, Radius Records
Armand Van Helden, Je t’aime (Simian Mobile Disco Remix), Southern Fried
Camaro’s Gang, Fuerza Major (Tensnake Remix), Radius Records
Chaz Jankel, Get Myself Together (Hercules & Love Affair Remix), Tirk
Rude 66, The 1000 Year Storm, Crème Organization
The Hasbeens, Make the World Go Away, Clone
GoodBooks, Leni (Crystal Castles Remix), Columbia
Golden Bugs, Radio SSG (Rove Dogs Remix), Silicon Square Garden Records
Tiger Stripes, Survivor, Get Physical
Lifelike, High On, Eyezcream Recordings
David E Sugar, To Yourself, Kitsuné
Cut Copy, Lights & Music (Moulinex Remix), Modular
Zoot Woman, We Won’t Break, Wall of Sound
Estelle feat. Kanye West, American Boy, Homeschool Records

Enjoy.

Expect a mix from me posted on HIS blog soon. Fun.

Tags: black, gold

2008-02-17T08:16:00.000-08:00

Sam Sparro - Black & Gold // Island Records Well, I told myself I'm gonna try to post some more here. My information - which only I possess - clearly shows there's some interest in this corpse of a blog. Some visitors are coming from certain parts of the world. I even have some page views. That's all I can share right now. On with the music then, I suppose that with the increase of posts, more music will be available. This song is cool. It really worked quite nicely for the last couple of plays. Nothing too demanding, or original, but the hook is rather intelligent and interesting. I don't know much about the guy, and I haven't heard the Al Usher remix yet (seriously), so that's it. Black and Gold.

Terje's groove puzzle

2008-02-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

Tangoterje - Can't Help It // GAMM So, my girlfriend made this astounding 2-hour special tribute to Michael Jackson's Thriller on the Israeli radio - full of really interesting anecdotes (For example, did you know young Michael was immensely inspired by Julie Andrews?) and great musical nostalgia. She decided to finish it off with this remarkable edit of 'Can't Help It', made by Todd Terje. This re-edit, for its Villalobos-invoking percussion, stretched out unique groove, and the crystal clear elegant singing by MJ (also, it's a bloody 9:39-long epos) make it too obvious that Terje is (still) an unfulfilled promise of a genius: his grasp of the complex inner-boogie ingredient lurking inside Disco Music is almost mathematically accurate, but still full of love and respect for the creation of music, rather than disco itself (as a gay phenomena, an agenda, or born musical preference. He once said that he discovered disco through his sister, and wasn't all that into it before that).

Disco, for Terje, is an amazing musical universe with endless rhythm patterns and possibilities - an ultimate groove jigsaw puzzle made with other people's miniature pieces. He realizes, like all of us, that disco is the perfect balance point between jazz, funk and house (if I was a bit geekier - which I am - I'd call it an equilibrium). The first and final incarnation of body music-- dance music. Just check out his glorious edits discography if you're still suspicious.

'Can't Help It' was released in 2005, on the Swedish label GAMM. The beards (a nickname for the pedantic yet adorable Balearic/Disco nerds --Occam) probably know this little gem already, but I reckon the hairless rest of the population should know about it too.

Gonzales is back

2008-02-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hey. I just wanted everyone to know I think Gonzales is a really cool guy. It's kinda shameful Feist and Peaches, who were his homies back in the Kitty-Yo days, got so much more recognition for their music. He released a few very good albums so far, he's totally creative and fluent on the piano, he is actually an off-kilter "composer". Also, he's really weird. In the sense that most 'indie' persons aspire to be - you all look the fucking same. Being Canadian, Jewish too, had his time living in Berlin (hence the Kitty-Yo connection) and now he resides in Paris. That's a pretty cool combo anyway. Now he has a new album coming soon (April 17th) called "Soft Power". That's all cool, and there's a collaboration with Teki Latex, which I kinda like too. That is generally pretty nice, so far.

The new song is called "Slow Down", and it may sound like a stereotypical electro-pop number, but if you take a deeper look within, and judge it in the wider perspective of his previous more-subversive work, you can totally see he's a really funny, emotional, ultra-talented yet underrated type of guy (why did I think of Whitey now?). This video teaser of the new album is exactly - in the meanest marketing mastermind sense there is - real viral content stuff. Also, Gonzales has a captivating Borat-esque presence, and the part where the teacher yelps-sings 'Slow down!' with him is totally precious.

Here is is (via Discobelle):

Slow is the new fast

2008-01-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

I want to talk about something. I don't really know what or how. I want to talk about Balearic Mike for a bit. I have been checking him out lately a bit. I don't know much about the guy, so it might just be my need to feel some sort of personal "cultural development", but I really like him right now. In fact, since I listened to his "Cosmic Alphonsus Vol. 7" mix a couple of times (not that many actually), he has become my - hold your breath - favourite DJ.

Now, yes. Is that all it takes, then, to seduce me these days? With so much, excuse me, rubbish floating around - once I stumble upon something that is so NOW and so ME at the same time, I completely forget my self-phrased musical values and lose my head. What does it take, then? First, the tracklisting is a secret. Yes, thanks Balearic Mike. It is indeed a great idea to first neutralize the nervous namedropper in me. Richard Stallman and his Free Software movement might not like this non-disclosure approach about your songs, Mike, and regarding them as "secrets" might seem kind of weird in a post-soulseek-mp3-apocalypse, but then again: that's why it's so amazing.

Listening to the mix with no song list in front of you (something I now advise everyone to do) feels kind of weird at first. Like someone has shaken your grounds for a second, you immediately go "Where's my wikipedia dammit?", but then you forget about it. Who cares about the tracklisting? Balearic Mike (a seriously cool name indeed) is trying to say: trust me please. And I don't really trust many people, but the music, yesss.

Second, this is a pack full of extremely great songs, of course. I don't know most of them. They sound like everything I like, though: some cosmic, beardo, weird unclassics, "slow is the new fast", hey what's that sound? whoa, it totally sounds like Studio, psych, ultimate guilty pleasures, DISCO. It's basically the unsung soundtrack of me in 2007. A beautiful aural narration of my life this year. Mike seems like the last one standing of the true digger fame. A less nagging version of DJ Harvey, perhaps. His taste is not too personal to alienate, but not too broad to feel cheap. He' both communicative AND passionate about what he's doing. A listener's taste, not a DJ's. Truly delicate and stylish, without making your ears twist and your heart disappear. I'm feeling so balearic.

Rubbish

2007-12-11T04:51:00.000-08:00

My top, uh, things in music right now, or something:

1. Aeroplane feat. Kathy Diamond - Whipsers (Hercules & Love Affair Remix)

Heard it somewhere. Oh, it's wonderful. Oh, I love it. Oh, oh, oh, yes. Hope you got the message. Yeah, it's great, and, be patient, or something.

2. Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor

Yeah, totally. Of course.

3. Babytalk - Keep on Move

Progressive techno and shit, this is ace ace ace.

4. Studio - Out There

The 16 most beautiful minutes of 2007. Classic.
(even though it was released in 2006)

5. The Chemical Brothers - Battles Scars (BTWS Remix)

Erol & Richard are at the top of their game. Great stuff.

6. El Dukes - Tittle Tattle (Borat Edit)

A friend said that Borat is the best unknown DJ in the world. This edit should support that claim.

7. Holy Fuck - The Pulse

Yes. Approved.

8. Hipnosis - Pulstar / Gino Soccio - Remember

Both tracks from the new Dj Hell 'Hellboy' mix for Playboy. Full of shameless Italo uber-classics (therefore Music classics). These two are premium content for me. Lindstrom has a notebook packed with this stuff.

9. Tiger Stripes - Survivor

Mm, I think I liked this groove for a couple of hours. Kind of stuff Booka Shade eats for breakfast.

10. Roland Appel - Unforgiven

Yeah. Sure.

General notes:

1. Hot Chip

2. Aeroplane

3. Hercules & Love Affair

This just in

2007-11-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

Was I unfashionably late again? Guess so. The Studio album ("West Coast") is breaking my little heart into diminutive pieces. OH MY FREAKISH GOD-- I don't think I listened to music this way since I was like 11 years old.

In other news: I am really enjoying Ricardo Villalobos' "Sei Es Drum". I think I'm finally in the right mood to properly listen to Villalobos.

I think these two releases are similar in numerous ways. Studio isn't really "balearic" as Villalobos isn't really "minimal". Yes, both of them easily and perfectly fit those genre definitions. Although - and this is important - both transcend the definitions, while utilizing them as a musical playground. Both of them are totally new, as in fresh, as in creatively independent works, but at the same time - both aren't afraid of being old, aren't afraid of being devoid of an aesthetic statement. I think this sort of confidence, call it cultural confidence perhaps, is what makes these two so unique (this might apply to Luciano as well, though he's less imaginative or "experimental" at times). This isn't cosmetic - hollow - confidence. Or the type of confidence coachers try to shove into you, but a confidence which is an essential part of the creation process, type of confidence which might as well define it along the way.

Studio could be - music-wise - DFA, techno (90s), Carly Simon, Prins Thomas, Morgan Geist, Happy Mondays, Aphex Twin, Beatles, Beyond The Wizards Sleeve witchcraft, and many more. But they aren't, and don't really have to be in order to exist.

Villalobos could be Richie Hawtin (and is!), cumbia (hi Samim), Studio, uhh techno, Autechre, DFA (Black Dice-esque), Beatles und Depeche Mode, Prins Thomas, Erol Alkan, latin mumbling, talent, non-talent, Sonar '06, ketamine (et al), Philip Sherburne, etc. But he isn't, and don't really have to be to exist.

This sort of indepedence is what makes me love and appreciate them so much.

LIFE

2007-10-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Yeah. And. And stuff. I don't know what LCD's fabriclive sounds like yet, since me and my girlfriend decided we're gonna listen to it first time together. Aw, how romantic! Thanks. Yep. Anyway. So I got to listening to Booka Shade's DJ Kicks instead (since they're not The James Murphy). And this is sick. Beautiful music.

This mix puts Booka Shade, and I wasn't absolutely sure about it before, in the same producer scale as genius, out of the ordinary producers such as: Hot Chip, Carl Craig, Giorgio Moroder, James Murphy, Timbaland, among others. It redefines the phrase 'life-affirming', seriously, and superlatives won't really do any justice with it. To put it simply: I might not listen to it ever again soon, and it might last for the moment, but thank you kindly Booka Shade for taking these moments and making them eternal. No more eclectic bullshit, never before did Brigitte Bardot, John Carpenter, Yazoo, Booka Shade themselves, The Streets and Matthew Dear sounded so smoothly together. Not even in mixes by eclectic-demigods such as The Glimmers, Optimo, Prins Thomas and the alike. There, they sounded "eclectic", kinda forced, kinda gimmicky. They worked great, but this is a completely different story. Booka Shade's layers sound so harmonically peaceful together. It's all warm, un-German-like, but not Samim-esque self-aware-funkiness, and not in deeper-than-thou Henrik Schwarz mannerism (which I love). Clean, but not disgustingly-obsessively-clean. Warm, but not soulful-house warm. Smart, but doesn't make a fuss about it. Constantly interesting. Melodic in so many different aspects. Gentle and sweet, but doesn't make your teeth bleed. Technoish, but based on solid singer-songwriter grounds. And they even have their own song there, with fucking vocals!

The guys are masterminds. I don't know what Get Physical would have been without them. They laid such great outlines for the label, and created its bare essential sound. Great choice DJ Kicks. Great work, K7. You do know who to work with and how. The last DJ Kicks was also excellent, by Booka Shade collaborators Hot Chip. Any guesses for the next one?

I mean. Ok, I'd really like them to produce like a pop act. That would be awesome. And I'm not talking Will I Am's lame ripping, or Kanye's lame ripping of Daft Punk, but something of their own.

This definitely deserves a post

2007-10-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have a girlfriend that loves electronic music.

19 repeats left

2007-09-09T06:18:00.000-07:00

Enur - Calabria 2007 After a couple of DFA related posts, I guess it's time to balance out my too cool for school presence. Alright, this song is a hit. Samim is gonna be upset with me for posting such 'Heater' resembling trash, but it's the best trash there is. There's absolutely nothing special about this song, except the fact that - similarly to Heater - it's here to have fun, no apologies whatsoever. It's probably gonna annoy me in the next 20 repeats, and then evaporate etc, but who cares?

Uh, and for the record: I dislike songnames that contain years.

Forget it, it starts now

2007-09-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

The Soulwax remix of LCD Soundsystem?

Oh.
God.

Still Going Theme

2007-09-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

The madness begins soon. Real soon.

Hebrew TV

2007-08-30T01:38:00.000-07:00

This is an Israeli band called Ha'Ivrit (hm, "The Hebrew"). I'm sorry if the vocals sound arab to you, or sound rough. I don't know if this scales on international levels, but on Israeli levels this is brilliant. At any rate, this is some nice mid-day YouTube moments.

My god, My Erol

2007-08-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

Erol Alkan is one of the best DJs in the world. His 'Sweet Dreams' re-edit in this little youtube clip clearly proves it.

Samim

2007-08-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

Samim - Heater // Get Physical Well well well! What have we here?! Best track of the world right now. There's so much to say about this, and Samim is such a darling, but first and foremost you've gotta listen to it. You've gotta check this poll out, and help us decide whether Samim is the next great thing or not. This is an ultra-cool site in which you can ask the world anything you want, and get such amazing results. Fucking neat.

iPhone: my first impression

2007-07-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone's talking about it here on the net, I felt like I needed my iPhone post too. Well, as it appears right now - the apple iPhone is gonna be a hit. I'm pretty sure of it.

Best J Murphy quote of late

2007-06-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

Brought to you as is: "i DO take some exception to your attitude, but some of that comes from growing up the way i did, and fighting a lot, etc.--it's this "who the fuck do you think you're coming up to and talking to like this?" side of human life. juan and i talk about this a lot. som guy came up to me when i was dj'ing in london, called me over to him and said "i like some of your music, but your set tonite is shit." i nearly killed him. i mean, i grabbed the guy and said "who the fuck do you think you're talking too? do you KNOW me? do we KNOW each other? i'm not from here. i will kill you in front of all these people" yadda yadda yadda. it was lame of me"

It's like, the guy is an Internet nerd like us, he replies to his own YouTube videos, he experiences web 2.0 to the fullest and yet

2007-06-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

Samim is my new hero.

Damn, it's been a while

2007-06-14T12:33:00.001-07:00

John Miles - Stranger In The City (Pilooski Edit) // Dirty Damn it, it HAS been a while since we heard something this good. Pilooski and the Dirty crew pull it off once-a-gain, illustrating that in the end of the day: underground, mostly Internet-spread music - being incredible - progresses beautifully towards the overground, i.e mainstream pop/radio. It simultaneously displays that The Net (aka 'The Information Super Highway', if you're a jerk) has contributed greatly to the overall quality of music. The flow of occurrences - Dirty Records send out promo's mostly to bloggers (web 2.0 phenomena), DJ John Smith's browse the most read (and usually, which demonstrats more or less the same thing), better blogs and start playing the tracks and pass it to their lazier, bigger DJ friends and the path to BBC's Radio 1 and Pete Tong's show is short. Then, Pilooski's edit of Frankie Valli's 'Beggin' (which has been pompously and pretty rightfully described as this year's Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' - which brings another interesting point: How exactly *easy* is it for talented French producers like Pilooski to invoke almost-forgotten 60's tunes like that?) getting signed to 679 is pretty inevitable.

Ain't it pretty? Well, the music is prettier: gloomy vocals, same familiar drum programming from his Double Dub re-edit, an unclassic (or is it? etc), unsung song that gets thrown back all over to here-and-now, a quite special cup of tea for the beardos - precisely of the Rub'N'Tug/Permanent Vacaction type - something you could imagine Baldelli playing in real time, Geist fornicating on and DJ Kaos shamelessly ripping off later. I listened to it once. Didn't completely get it, I admit. Liked it, listened again. Started to feel it. Listened again. Thought it's great. Listened again. Got addicted. Mrs. Girlfriend said it grew on her as well. Had a thought: the mystical thing that gives these records their eternalness lies in a certain unheard, almost hiss-like subtext. Enjoy this golden one. Wanna thank the Dirty peeps for giving me this promotional pleasure. Buy it when it's out, it's the new 7th Dark & Lovely, with another treasurable krautrock/slowcore/Yacht rock/whatever on the other side.

Blogger's delight

2007-05-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

I've been making these little one-hour mixes for a while, mostly of hot dance music and general new shizz I liked during the week. This usually appears on an Israeli magazine, but this one came off especially good - so my beloved girlfriend suggested I post it here (and oh, yeah, it includes that Solomun & Stimming track):

MP3

Cut Copy – Hearts On Fire (Joakim Remix) // Modular
Siobhan Donaghy – Don't Give It Up (Carl Craig Dub) // White
Guy Gerber – Sea Of Sand (Album Version) // Cocoon
Solomun & Stimming – Feuervogel // Diynamic
Paul Woolford – Sealed In Amber // NRK
Justice – D.A.N.C.E (MSTRKRFT Remix) // White
Muscles – Ice // White
New Young Pony Club – Hiding On The Staircase // Modular
Shy Child – Noise Won't Stop (Buraka Som Sistema Remix) // Wall Of Sound
The Chemical Brothers feat. The Klaxons – All Rights Reserved // Astralwerks
Map Of Africa – Bone // Whatever We Want Records
Uffie – First Love // Ed Banger

My elaborate Kitsune Maison 4 review

2007-05-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

The new Kitsune Maison 4 is pure, unadulterated SHIT.

I'll always be there, oh, oh, my future love yawn

2007-05-09T03:09:00.000-07:00

Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (Occam's Razor dissection) Warning: this might come off as a little pretentious. If you have anything against pretense - stop the record now. Alright, then. I'll say it straight up: I think Soulwax's remix of this song, is the first piece of music in the world that is basically so good till it becomes redundant. I'll explain: we were all anticipating Soulwax's "new remix", after the great one they did for The Gossip (also, one can spot the beginning of this procedure back then), the hype manifested just like a blurry-half-pirated, taken-from-some-random-concert youtube video can. Blogs were hiddenly competing each other for the first one to post bits of this remix. Everyone were so eager to "get there", that nobody basically ever got there.

We did think it's great for the first time we heard it - Soulwax, after all, planned it that way - they definitely know how to capture the SECOND's sound and print it on a record. Obviously, the problem might lie right there - it only worked for a second. We heard it once, loved it, heard it the second time, and it sounded amazing, but somewhere then we realized we were kind of fooled - Soulwax led us to believe it's outstanding, and after the "killer beat" excitement wore off, sorry - the "new killer beat" excitement - we saw there's basically NOTHING there: the beat becomes boring too quickly (for its own good), the famous handclaps are a bad reference when they sound best (for their own good), the vocals are oh-too-familiar already with the consistent plethora of remixes (for their own good etc) - we are left with nothing, really. Pop will eat itself? I suppose Soulwax are the first pop wizards to prove this.

Balearic Rave*

2007-05-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

John Forde - Star Dance // EMI Exclusive for this blog! I got this leaked stuff, from 1977. I think it's the new release on Ed Banger, or maybe Kitsune, or maybe - hell - Modular. Yeah, "we" were sent this and were kindly asked NOT to post, but our readership commitment is ranked too highly.

Apparently, Richie Hawtin and Pedro Winter were playing this back to back for the last couple of months. Also, it seems like new-r*ve has taken up a new direction - which is, old great cosmic disco sounds.

I heard Justice were extremely pissed off when they heard about this - they said they were quitting Ed Banger to produce freak-folk for Joanna Newsom's new album.

This one's definitely for the kidz!

(* satire)

Two words:

2007-05-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

Rune Lindbaek

(Fuck yeah)

Memories...

2007-04-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

Clor - Love and Pain (James Ford Remix) // MP3 Wha? What is this? An old one? A reallly old one, like a FEW YEARS AGO old? This is older than, like, Blue Monday, or something, I imagine. Back when Simian Mobile Disco weren't the ultra-cool-super-hipster nerds that they are, before the 'Hustler' craze (even Spank Rock, in a very non-elegant way, put it in their weak Fabric mix). That was, kids, before Kitsune spotted them, before the great remixes, Suck My Deck, and the new album. Even before the backlash that will onslaught us afterwards - James Ford, of SMD, was pretty much anonymous.

This great remix was rejected by Clor, such an unfortunate decision by them, which might explain their split later - bad decisions all along.

James Ford and his mate James Shaw have become this decade's Chemical Brothers (and if anyone heard 'Do It Again' yet - they should know how irrelevant the Bros are these days), Ford produced the Klaxons' album (good songs, bad attitude). Things have evolved.

And Clor? Clor has been fogotten ever since. The blogger kids don't play them in their puny parties anymore, or include them in their puny mixes anymore. Van She is ok, Guns N Bombs is fine, Justice is excellent, but no, no Clor.

At the end of the day, all in all, at any rate and anywho - this is of course a fantastic remix, an "old gem", if you will. Maybe even an obscurity, given you're a 16 year old blog reading teenager that listens to The Teenagers. Tell your friends.

Jona of Arc

2007-04-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Jona - Smart Cats Vs. Dumb Dogs // Get Physical Like, in a world with no Booka Shade or 'Mandarine Girl' - this would have been a full blown summer hymn. Get Physical does it again.

March listening

2007-03-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

x) Kaos - Panopeeps (Amazing)
x) Diskjokke - Heft & Plunder EP (Great Norwegian stuff. Next big thing. Word)
x) Freddie Mercury - Love Kills (Glimmers Mix) (Not always fond of their style, but this is gold)
x) Xaver Naudascher - Lost (Tilts my liver a bit)
x) Kathy Diamond - Another Life (Off of the new Fulton-produced album -- Quality)
x) Feist - My Moon My Man (Non-guilty pleasure singer-songwriter alt-pop perfection)
x) Amplified Orchestra - Kebec 1 (Can you resist a Kebekelektrik re-edit? I couldn't)
x) Lopazz - Share My Ryhthm (Isolee Remix) (Me heart Isolee)
x) Padded Cell - Moon Menace (Great home-made disco from the UK)
x) The Flirts - Helpless (You Took My Love) (Thanks Professor for this one. I'm an addict)
x) Talking Drums - Courage (Actually, anything from the Computer Incarnations compilation is a must have)
x) Bjorn Torske - Hatten Passer (More Norwegian stuff. Ace)
x) Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (Soulwax Remix) (Only heard a snippet, but this is EVIL)
x) Lindstrom - Breakfast in Heaven (Gettting a real release soon, though been leaked for ages. Time to recall how remarkable this work is)
x) LCD Soundsystem - Us v Them (Best track on the album, as of now -- The 45:33-esque stylings of 'Get Innocuous' and 'Someone Great' disco jams plus I've declared it as my new personal favourite)

More words soon...

Yes, your RSS reader hasn't lost its mind

2007-03-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Audiofly X & Paul Harris - Miscalate (Partial Arts Remake) // Rekids One of those tracks you hear once, and you're not sure whether you're supposed to like it or not. You listen to it one more time, you think of Pearson's hands on the knobs (after 'Trauermusik', and the Tidwell remix you're pretty sure he's a genuine warrior of them intricate 'beats'), and you just automagically fall in love with it. You know it's there to stay. The chirpy synth keys, reminiscent of Jesse Rose's work, the rhythmic mess which surrounds everything - resistance is futile.

Jean-Luc Ponty - Computer Incarnations For World Peace // Sonar Kollektiv This is a blissful proto-electronica number, featured on SK's 'Computer Incarnations For World Peace', a series of rare bootlegs (ha, not anymore!), and great hidden gems. Not sure how this is supposed to get the kids dancing, maybe as a set-opener in the vein of Laurie Spiegel's 'Appalachian Grove i' - another proto-something something. Anyway, as you can see - articulating about it isn't my strongest side. Surely not as strong as my dish washing skills (and my girlfriend can vouch for that).

WTF!

2007-02-22T03:38:00.000-08:00

Les Petits Pilous - Jolie Fille (wrongly labeled) This is a total 'WTF' moment, slowly turned into a 'WOW' revelation. I really don't think that I should say stuff like: Erol Alkan has apparently been playing this to death long before anyone knew what it is (I'm actually not really sure about that, but I suppose so) - but on a completely serious note, I don't think you need more than a set of ears to realize that this is MAD. Their INSPIRATION is PARA ONE, do you get that? It means there's so much young and vital blood in it. This is how kids perceive rave or something, I presume. Anywho, this time my blogging duty is just to pass this to you - I don't even have any light to shed on this one, as it's so straightforwardly brilliant.

Disco inferno

2007-02-19T18:07:00.000-08:00

Surkin - Kiss and Fly (Tacteel Remix) Surkin is the only Frenchie I know, with... er, a groove. Only 18, but he probably has one of those big 80's tapes on his shoulder. Riding the streets. He has a hat flipped backwards too. He loves hip hop (posters of Eric B & Rakim and Public Enemy are on display in his room), but his label - Institubes - asked so kindly for funk-fueled electro that he just couldn't say no. Good education, I suppose.

Pure Goldmann

2007-02-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

It - Women In Toilets (Stefan Goldmann Macro Version) Ha, Stefan Fucking Goldmann! Is 'Macro' the new minimal? Instead of clicks & clacks, Goldmann displays ticks and tocks. This is such a subtle, clean and delicate production. To be frank, I don't even care what the original sounds like - Goldmann ripped my eyes out with his 'Sleepy Hollow EP' from last year, all he needs now to give me a celestial feeling is slowly build these micro-melodies and gradually iron my soul with the clever percussion. Am-azing.

BTW: I am starting a new petition. It's called 'Terje please re-edit everything in the world', and we are trying to get Todd Terje to re-edit everything he can. The inspiration was the new nudisco edit of Trentemoller's 'Take Me Into Your Skin' (it wasn't Terje himself there): I'm curious, if nudisco edits of post-minimal tracks are a valid option - Why not make it a principle?

Lee Jones, remix this

2007-02-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

My Mine - Hypnotic Tango I didn't have anything to post, but my friend zshared this file for me - so I decided to post it. The story is, I'm making little mixtapes for a close friend, and after hearing the wonderful instrumental of Human League's 'Things That Dreams Are Made Of' (it sounds like a great Italo classic that way) I realized I have to include this song as well, but I only had the instrumental version. You gotta agree that the original one is much better. Serge Santiago has re-edited this, and The Glimmers (among many) seem to love this. This is gonna be played between Soft Cell's 'Sex Dwarf' and Daniel Wang's 'Like Some Dream I Can't Stop Dreaming'. Can't disclose any more of the tracklist. She might read here, and it has to be a surprise. I'll only imply there's some Serge Santiago, John Carpenter and Lucy Pearl in there. Lovely.

New chart...

2007-01-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

(this is the 3rd attempt to write this post, my browser crashed twice. excuse the pissed off tone please:) Partial Arts - Trauermusik Well, there are two surprises about this track: first, it's on the Kompakt empire. Techno's Starbucks. Now, I know Mayer does a great job and everything -- but there's almost no quality control. It's just too hard to pinpoint the good stuff. Luckily, some kind bloggers and record shops do it for us! Secondly, it's from Britain. No offence guys, but you're more of a cultural center than a domain of creation. Great reproducers than originators. It was a nice surprise to hear such aesthetically genius and originality. All Saints - Chick Fit (Kissy Sell Out's Excellent Adventure) I've always known Kissy Sell Out had style, but never wholeheartedly liked his productions, to be honest. This is the first time he really pulls it off quite well, maybe it's the right song choice; maybe it's the confidence with doing something for a major label the first time, either way, it's a banger. Cajuan - Raven (Joakim's Antwerp Rework) A genius is a genius is a genius (referring to Joakim here!) - those of us who missed 'I Wish You Were Gone' get their does here. Riton - Hammer of Thor (Roman Flugel Remix) I'm always suspicious of "ambitious" producers, but this time Flugel managed to add extra ruckus potential to the already-perfect original. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (Geek Chic's Emotional Teenager Dub)* This is an unofficial remix, which makes it even hotter, done by Fake ID. I've always liked Fake ID - he's been around for a long time, silently releasing his great monthly hotmixes and remixes. I'm very fond of the old Franz Ferdinand remix he did, which was my favourite remix of that song. He's always had that underground vibe to him, and made primitive electro actually sound good - which is a big achievement. He was MySpace before MySpace was even invented! It's a great remix, although I don't really know what's going on there: electro swirls, James Murphy vocals and some candy effects among other weird things. Check out his new blog, where he'll post remixes and edits like this one. Eyerer and Chopstick - Haunting (Christopher Just Remix) Christopher Just, with his brother Raphael, put the 'pop' in electropop with their POPPER hit on KITSUNE, which sampled LIPPS INC's FUNKYTOWN (ok the caps will stop now) - can't get any poppier than that. Here he brings another dancefloor destroyer. Bonde Do Role - Gasolina (Radioclit Remix) Radioclit add an important lo-fi electro twist to the sometimes monotonous fidget house phenomena. Here they mix baile with awfully familiar rave samples to great effect. Peter Visti - Bad Weather Eskimo Records can't go wrong; The B-side to 'Balearic Love' is a real cosmic disco treasure. Ricardo Villalobos & Luciano - Something Bad Take Luciano's sense of FUN, Ricardo Villalobos' genius musicality and Michael Jackson, and you get a fantastic minimal re-edit. If people like Tittsworth can take 70s classics and give them the Baltimore treatment; Terje and his horde of followers can take classic disco songs and customize them for here-and-now; Breakout and others can do funk cover of electro classics - why can't the next thing be minimal re-edits? Like, think of Yazoo's 'Don't Go' as conceived by Loco Dice. The Clash's 'Guns of Brixton' by Audion? Believe it and it'll happen. Breakout - Planet Rock Writing this post I realized again how good this cover is, I just had to post it. Perfect wedding music.

* link removed due to request from the label.

The Aesthetics of Disco

2007-01-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

My Cousin Roy - Bobbi's Back Let's look at what's given: 1. 2nd person (first was Skwerl) who added me to MySpace and had GOOD MUSIC FOR A CHANGE. 2. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York - home of disco. 3. Profile Views: 946 4. Plays Today: 4 5. 24 comments. If you do the math, you can tell this is 'temporal internet obscurity'. Take into account that this is a marvelous re-edit indeed (definitely ranked highly, running up close to the Pilooski and Terje Diamonds Dub ones), and you have post material already (MySpace).

Logic System - Clash The cosmic freaks already know this gem. It's taken from DJ Harvey's eponymous Sarcastic Disco mix. Something about the simple popcorn stylings, the orchestral synths, and the throbbing bass kicks gives me the feeling that if all music in the world sounded like this, I'd still be very happy. Also, in a world like that, I wouldn't bore you with overused theories about eclecticism. Yuch.

Pawel - The Aesthetics of Resistance The good thing about music is that, unlike people (sorry, folks) - you always have the feeling you'll find something new, amazing and you'd egotistically feel it was made just for you, for that very moment. It did happen recently with Skatebaard, it did happen with Ewan Pearson & Al Usher's Partial Arts project (I'm sure that if I actually met those guys in person, it'd be much more awkward than just listening to their music... Eh). So, hm, this is your next great moment - continuing the spaced-out fashion of Logic's Clash, Pawel's aesthetics of resistance are really, really beautiful.

Love love love

2007-01-16T15:04:00.000-08:00

"Well, our song? Our song must be 'Ihre Persönliche Glücksmelodie' by Gabriel Ananda, the Dominik Eulberg remix of course! On Karmarouge. Man, when we hear that - our hearts melt, we think of love, we think of each other, we even almost think of marriage. That's how sweet and precious our song is to us"

(Riton & Heidi, a couple and a production team, when asked about what their song would be)

Or maybe it was Latex?

2007-01-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

(@ THE PARTY)

- Oh yess, this is good!!!
- Name that tune!
- Ahhh it's great, er, lemme think... Pretty minimal, some thumps and clacks.. Is it 'Seeing Through Shadows'?
- No! Rekorder!
- What?? I can't hear you... No Order?
- No!! Rek-order!!!
- Oh oh, who is No Order?
- Stephan Bodzin!
- Oh, so is it 7.1, 7.2, or 7.3?
- Ahh I dunno, who cares!

...

- Damn! This is great! I know this one!
- Name that tune!
- Uhh, Seeing Through Shadows?
- No! Patrick Chardronnet!
- OH! I never heard anything from him, didn't know he's that good
- It's his goddamn hit!
- Great!

...

- Yeah! Now *this* is Seeing Through Shadows
- No, it's Ame's remix of Akabu
- Er, fuck minimal

Headman Versus DJ Naughty (11-12/01/07)

2007-01-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

(TO BE POSTED HERE)

Quick thing though, before I get to writing the actual post (it's 8am and I just got home so it's gonna happen after I wake up), -ok I must do this THANK YOU GODLY DJ NAUGHTY FOR 'SOUND OF SILVER', thank you for Betty Botox 'Music Is Music'- anyway, er, OK, hm-- this is gonna be painful: Thursday was Headman, and my gut feeling told me I'm not gonna *totally* be in the party, I just think that from being an avid Headman fan, my taste has grown more mature, I'm afraid, and something, along the overtly trite Nu-raveness, didn't feel quite right there. It's not like it wasn't good, or close to great, but still I knew exactly how high I'm gonna fly with Headman. Then, Friday came along and the idea was to go watch Babel (the last one I saw was Nolan's 'The Prestige', which totally made it clear to me - Nolan, only 36, is gonna be one of the greatest directors ever. It was really postmodern in the positive way. It did say such a clever thing about cinematic art, that it immediately reminded me Jarmusch's pretty recent 'Broken Flowers') with a nerdy friend that I like, then we went to eat in Tel Aviv and it has appeared like a quiet, fun, laid-back evening but then I felt like I had to go to see DJ Naughty play @ the Dada - shit do I sound like a psycho here?? - and it blew my mind and fulfilled all my expectations. You see, it was even better than what I expected - because when I imagine music, it's not like when I feel it, so no matter what my intuition implied, the party was even BETTER than that. Wait, I'm getting to the point. These two parties, occurrences, events, which I both very much enjoyed overall, showed me that I have a pretty strong intuition. I just don't get it, really, if my intution about music, art and culture is so strong, how come the rest of my life seem so disordered damnit?

2006: An off-kilter round-up

2007-01-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my taste in music. As a child, I think I listened to everything that I could lay my filthy hands on. That is, I know, not very selective. I would enjoy heavy metal and eurotrash with no real distinction. The only thing that mattered was who influenced me, who inspired me to go and reach that music. Above all, I feel music was my way to communicate with people. When I danced; when I experienced, I felt like I was connecting with other people.

Looking at what 2006 was for me, as posted on RA:

01. Depeche Mode - The Sinner In Me (Ricardo Villalobos Conclave Remix) [Mute]
02. Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler [Kitsune]
03. Jesse Rose - Evening Standard [Dubsided]
04. Hot Chip - No Fit State [EMI]
05. Booka Shade - In White Rooms [Get Physical]
06. Padded Cell - Are You Anywhere? [DC]
07. The Emperor Machine - Yes No Egg [DC]
08. Stefan Goldamnn - Sleepy Hollow [Innervisions]
09. Gabriel Ananda - Ihre Personliche Gluksmelodie (Dominik Eulberg Remix) [Karmarouge]
10. In Flagranti - Uncanny Hinting [Codek]
11. L.S.B - Original Highway Delight (Mungolian Jetset Remix) [Eskimo]
12. Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-edit) [Wichita]
13. Quiet Village Project - Circus Of Horrors [Whatever We Want]
14. Nick Chacona - Through The Door [20:20 Vision]
15. Betty Botox - Music Is Music [Botox]
16. Sly Mongoose - Snakes And Ladder (Rub N Tug Remix) [Mule Musiq]
17. Guillemots - Trains To Brazil [Fantastic Plastic]
18. Guy Gerber & Shlomi Aber - Sea Of Sand [Cocoon]
19. Antena - Camino Del Sol (Joakim Remix) [Permanent Vacation]
20. Skream - Midnight Request Line [Tempa]

Erm, for some reason the list lacks JT's 'My Love', but that's really not the point. The point is, looking at that list, and other peoples year-end lists - it feels like with the plethora of music, blogs, online magazines and whatnot - everyone has more or less the same tastes. And what does that say about the legitmacy of idiosyncratic taste in 2006? A pretty scary thought. As we try to reach maximum individualism, we more and more converge to being a huge, faceless, boring society. Just like everyone has a goddamn iPod, everyone uses MySpace, google and flickr-- the internet is supposedly the broadest and most weirdness-embracing place in the world, but it just ironically the opposite.

I really feel like if everyone enjoys 'Full Clip', 'Over & Over', 'Golden Skans' and 'Phantom' the same, then we're all the same person. If you like everything - you don't actually like anything. I will proclaim about myself that I did have my 'Seeing Through Shadows' bits, I did have those celestial 'Shinijuku' snaps, but I don't think it really is me. When you enjoy every dish people serve you, you kind of forget who you really are. I won't lie, I did sometimes force myself to understand music I don't usually understand, I don't think it's pretentious to want to expand your horizons-- but seriously, there's more to music and taste than globally enjoying it: so what if you're a kid in Sao Paulo enjoying that Audion track your Chilean friend YSI'd just for you? you have to, er, find your real roots.

So when I think of myself in 2007, I wish I could focus more on the less critically acclaimed and more personally cherished. This year I think I discovered disco to its almost fullest effect (and with this wonderful book I'm reading, 'Turn The Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco' by Peter Shapiro, it's just getting more and more fascinating) - and I plan on continue doing so. I also went back from electro to house, from house to disco and possibly I'll venture from disco to funk and jazz. The rawer I go, the better the sounds are. I also went back from minimal techno, which was greatly inspired by Richie Hawtin and his label m_nus this year, to Detroit techno. The future for me? dubbier, spacier, rawer, bassier and of course - discofied.

Anyway, this came out a little longer than I expected, and I restrained myself a bit too - I am not too sure if this is the right platform for this type of babble (it's probably, though, the perfect one). Maybe one day I'll write as emotionally as I really am about this subject.

While I was struggling between global and local tastes (glocalization, I believe), a good friend of mine who wants to remain nameless (but agreed to be called Superbadger for this post), gave me this mixtape he made of his own unadulterated retrospective of 2006. I am posting it for two reasons: it really is HIS *taste*, which is, you gotta agree - quite rare these days - and, it's quite brilliant. The sharp-eyed would relate this to the beardo disco/nu-disco fashion of recent times, but it's more of his own private retrospective than a fad thingy.

With all the proper modesty involved (it's indeed spectacular): be you a Pitchfork snob, a Sherburne wannabe, an electro-dance hysteria decadence advocate, a stuck-up psuedo-indie hipster, or just a confused guy - take a break of all that, open your mind and ears, and let this fine selection hijack your prejudices.

2006: A Retrospective Made By a Fool (Zshare)

Tracklisting:

Intro (Sam Cooke)
Metalchicks - Tears for fears/Conspiracy
Elvis Presley - Crying in The Chapel (Edit)
Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons - Beggin' (Pilooski Edit)
Andrew Weatherall - La Sirena
Justin Timberlake - My Love (DFA Remix)
Todd Terje/Paul Simon - Diamonds Dub
Bee Gees - Jive Talking (Todd Terje Re-Edit)
Djuma Soundsystem - Les Djinns (Trentemoller Remix)
Atlantic Conveyor - Open Your Soul (Music Box Mix)
LSB - Original Highway Delight (Mungolian Jetset Miami Camp Mix)
Skatebaard - June Nights South of Siena
Fram - Unatural High
Fuckaponydelic - Switch The Lights
DJ Tameil/Kraftwerk - Trans-Newark Express
Tittsworth - 4 Tops
Breakout - Planet Rock (Part 2)
Outro (Pilooski - Can't There Be Love)

Post-06

2007-01-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

Pilooski - Double Dub Edit Another re-edit of one of the most amazing songs I heard in my life. This is not yet another re-edit, but the best one (sorry, Terje) I heard. I seriously hope no one heard the erotic noises I made when I heard it. Oh my fucking G-o-d. Kathy Diamond - All Woman Maurice Fulton, need-I-say-more? Finally no Mu around and we can go back to the old school disco sounds that we love so much. Chemical Brothers - Electronic Battle Weapon 8 Would the brothers want to kill me if I said their main inspiration is Simian Mobile Disco now? Such clear big-room piano synths, stereophonic clicks and clacks-- I don't remember anything so powerful coming from the Brothers in a long ass time. I missed you so much. Pull those electronic weapons and fire the shit out of me. Thomas Dolby - One Of Our Submarines (Ricardo Villalobos Remix) How long did it take me to realize Damian Lazarus' Suck My Deck is a masterpiece? Too long. How long did it take me to realize this Thomas Dolby track is a perfect mellow spaced-out song? Don't even ask. Justin Martin - The Fugitive Claude Vonstroke is my man of the year. Well, obviously in the list after Matt Edwards and Carl Craig. He's been so punctate, so tasteful yet so energetic at the same time it makes you wanna go all the way to Detroit again, wonder where he is and find out it's San Fransisco. Well, as much as 'funky house' can be a hateful term; Well (2), forget about the silly introduction, it's on Dirtybird and that's all which counts right now. Welcome, new school Detroit. Skwerl - All Woman More songs titled 'all woman' please. Thing is, I gotta put this in my chart because so far, Skwerl is the only group that added me to Myspace and was actually any good. Plus, they're on Trickski's new label. Oh, and it's a great tune. Simian Mobile Disco - It's The Beat I know, they stole some of the ideas here. It's 2007 for christ's sake, I think wailing about plagiarism is so 90's. So 90's, that this song instantly propels SMD as one of the best dance producers in the world, as of 1/1/2007. Para One - Midnight Swim (Surkin Remix) Some people are rightfully tired of Ed Banger. When the hype disappears, i.e everyone left the party and only Pedro Winter is left to clean the mess the French underage hipster kids made - you realize Justice won't be the next Daft Punk. You realize Ed Banger is the best party in town, you realize that just like the best party - it lasts only as long as the music plays, the light flickers and the kiddies are happy. That still doesn't negate the fact Para One & Surkin are the kings in this castle. Joakim - Drumtrax (Radioslave Remix) Hey. Hi. Just look at that. Look at those names together there, in one song title. Fuck. !!! - Heart Of Hearts I recently had to compile a New York themed mixtape for a friend of mine, for his little mixtape project. He had given me a list of files, they all looked great. When I started mixing it for him, I realized how vital it is to have chk chk chk in there. New chk chk chk sounds are essential New York material. LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous Speaking of which, thank 'you' (Time's person of the year), the Internet user, for making it possible for music lovers to listen to awesome records, keep on searching for newer music and then neglect stuff that haven't been even released yet. With the festive actual release of the vinyl by DFA, with the correct remixers (give me Hot Chip, Carl Craig, Radioslave, Rub N' Tug and Nightmoves on a plate, please. Mock & Toof would be satisfactory as well), this record would get the maximum attention it so deserves.

Diamond in the rough

2006-12-27T06:31:00.000-08:00

Kathy Diamond - All Woman (Instrumental) At first, I thought this was an old disco tune I am likely to not have discovered yet, and was full of joy I could brag about it to my friends-- in the good ol' 'I found it first' fashion. But alas, it's a new Maurice Fulton production! No need for more than 16 bars to completely fall in love with this song. Maurice Fulton is on his brilliant track again: amazing remixes of Alice Smith's 'Love Endeavor' and Hot Chip's 'Over & Over' to name a few. Fulton used all his forward-thinking rhythmical prowess here, backed up with robust bass-driven arrangements - you can be self-assured - 2007's gates are fully open for the disco loving masses.

ELSEWHERE: my review of The Emperor Machine's album.

Chateau Flight

2006-12-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am going away on a vacation with my family. Hopefully it will slow down time a bit for me, I'll be disconnected from the Internet for a week and enjoy the lovely commecialized nature of Tenerife, an island near Spain. It's a 7-hour flight and I wish I could escape to Madrid on our stop there, but nah. I suppose there's no scene in Tenerife, so I don't expect to come back with musical inspiration.

Anyhow, I'm gonna take this vacation and try to enjoy music the good old fashioned way (as much as you can do that with an iPod). So really, if anyone has any recommendations for an album, shouldn't be necessarily new, that is in their top 10 (...to take to a deserted island), or just think I should love (I really don't care if it's obscure or pop, or anything I heard already-- that's essentially the beauty of recommendation) please drop a quick comment.

I know I'll be probably taking The Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds', so you get the idea. Take care and don't ruin the Internet while I'm gone.

You could put some joy upon my face

2006-12-11T01:06:00.000-08:00

Booka Shade - Darko (Ganzer & Nigemann Remix) You gotta admire the German's attitude towards their music: they don't bother building fake museums for their classics, they almost automatically celebrate great records in their own decadent way. This 2006-emerged classic comes from one of my albums of the year, Booka Shade's awesome Movements, and as with any other great track from this album-- it was celebrated with a handful of remix packs. Now, I'm all for this approach-- the more the merrier or something, although it can drain the track out of its initial energy (see article 'We Are Not Your Friends: Cultural Studies On How To Take A Feel Good Indie Track And Turn It Into Hell' for more). This time, we're all for the Radio Slave remix, we're all for the amazing combo named 'Booka Shade Meets Hot Chip', we don't even mind Tiefschwarz taking their shot (However, I did, for some reason, listen to their Misch Masch this week in the car and it sounds awfully dated already). For me, this masterpiece called 'Darko' can come in many shapes and forms - keep 'em coming then, I'll probably buy it.

Booka Shade VS Corona (Dumb Dan Edit) Some more Shadeness, this time not an official Get Physical release. This track, simply Corona's 'Rhythm of The Night' acapella glued with Shade's 'Darko' again, is quite basic. But, well, it's quite good! I mean, it's about pop magic or something, God. God, fuck blogging. I don't really know, I guess the DJs should play it in their oh-so-versatile electrohouse sets, it's one of those good surprises. You recognize the voices, you feel at home, but then there's this strange warmth that you don't recognize... It makes you feel new again.

Jona & Claude Vonstroke - Someone (Flylikeaneaglemix Claude Vonstroke) This year has been mostly about Rekids and Innervisions for me. Yes, it did have its Kitsune moments. Yep, it had a few of Ed Banger moments for a while, DFA too, of course. I could never really neglect Soul Jazz. Can't really forget the wonderful Dubsided moments, which most of the time Jesse Rose supplied. Full Pupp, Feedelity and the other norwegians were there with me during the good and bad times as well. Wagon Repair and DC Recordings are ones to be namechecked as well, ahhh, and the minimal-schminimal shenanigans of Perlon/Playhouse are on the map too. But really, it has been most of the time, Innervisions and Rekids. Again and again. But hold, couple of days before 2007, I think I've been missing Claude Vonstroke's San-Fransisco-based Dirtybird Records all along. Man, does this guy know what the fuck he be doing? I mean, he's putting the 'gno' back in Detroit Techno. I had trouble selecting one favourite track off his amazing list, but the man's a proper genius. Go check out what he did to Luke Solomon's 'Ghouls ' (on Rekids) if you haven't already. After that, that new The Rapture remix is so intact, that it's hopefully gonna give Vonstroke the adequate dance-rock crossover. So much better, sorry guys you know how much I love you than SMD's version (which sounds very much like what they did with Klaxons' 'Magick', same ideas etc... damn). His re-tweak of Andy Caldwell's 'Warrior', his own BookakakaShade-ish 'Beware of The Bird', well, just grab anything you can.

Matt O'Brien - Serotone (Radio Slave Remix) After I managed to purchase every single one of the releases on the short-lived Rekids label, this gem pops up. More Radio Slaveness, who's putting out so much shit right now (really, have you heard 'Screaming Hands' yet? man oh man), which is kind of like saying to us: please don't forget me. It's like he fully realized us kids love to idolize someone else every new day, and he's making sure that his name doesn't leave our consciousness. Kind of like how Google became the word for search engines, like web 2.0 became the word for some obscure internet thing, Radio Slave is the word for clean, minimal, banging & blissful tracks and remixes. Thank you, Matt Edwards. Go buy this record when it's released, the sleeve is beautiful too (as with anything else related to Rekids).

Sinden@Israel (1/12/06)

2006-12-01T19:27:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhhh, I just got back. You know those types who during the party extrapolate what their afterwards post is gonna look like? I've reached these conclusions, anywho:

1. Fidget house is only good when people who know the deal do it: As I see it, only when fidget house, that genre dubsided more or less invented, is played or made by people who actually know what they're doing-- it's in its perfect shape. Fidget house is not a real genre, it's more of an urban genre: made and created via the urbanity landscape. Of course, as with any art, the masterpieces will float when real artists take a shot at them. The real artists in this case are Sinden, Switch, Jesse Rose and Joshua Harvey (and I might add Ryan Jones to this list in a few years, or Erol Alkan when he leaves the dancefloor). When anonymous DJs try to play it, it's boring. The thing is, you have to be categorically skilled to know how to play it, as it was born in the UK for a certain reason: people got bored of the old house. They wanted to refresh it, but when unprofessional individuals, or just call it amateur try to refresh something, they usually retreat to the old formulas: raising the BPM, sampling over and over into frenzy, more epileptic sampler work, the extension of the builds and climaxes in tracks and so forth. When Sinden did it, he was close to professionalism. But at times, it just seemed like he was tweaking with the ecstatic beats to smartmouth us. Obviously, still has a lot to learn from master Dave Taylor.

2. When you pulled all your tricks already, all you want to do is make people dance: And that's what Sinden eventually did, took out his big pack of London hits to show the provincial Israeli kiddies, the middle-eastern Palestinians, what cultural centralism is all about: Banger after banger, and I almost fainted. After he played all the fidgety-boompty tricks, he just wanted people to freak the fuck out. He started with Simian VS Justice's 'Never Be Alone' (also, silly Israeli boy Tal never heard it in a club before), yes you're right, it can be fucking annoying to hear that a million times-- but at that very point, after an almost tiring fidget tricks&treats set, you wanna hear a familiar beat and it sounds almost perfect. So I danced my heart out, I made moves I never knew I could do, I think everyone was looking at me but I didn't care: I knew I much I loved Simian, then, he pulled that new Dirty South remix of Depeche Mode that's been going down well in London now I suppose, then Trentemoller's 'Go' remix, then Smith N Hack's remix of Herbert's 'Moving Like A Train' that I posted below (which is absolutely hysterical to see Israeli men trying to dance to that, most of them didn't know what hit them), and my favourite: Erol Alkan's amazing rework of Scissor Sisters (also in my top 5 remixes of the year)-- I have heard it so *many* times, and it never ceases to make me lose control. How great is that? After that, which is almost now time-wise, he continued dropping bangers like Boyz Noize but I just had to go. Think about it, in the end of the day, Sinden just like everybody else dropped the greatest bangers in the world right now. The ones that get played in Berlin's Panorama Bar just like at London's T-Bar, Barcelona's Razzmatazz etcetera etcerata. That, excuse my political stance, kind of made me feel like Israel is normal again.

3. I know what's right for me: Trust me, getting there wasn't easy at all. I've had terrible last couple of days, I think I had a nervous breakdown, I was mad at the entire world, and then I told my friends that I knew I needed this party, and I had to go to it. To quote Debbie Deb, 'When I hear music, it makes me dance', good music can cure all my troubles. That's about it, good *DANCE* music can do it, and you can call me shallow but I don't care, I think dancing is the greatest expression of feeling alive. So, I really know what's right for me. That's a good thing, that means I should trust my own intuition, I haven't had such an adrenaline rush in a long time, I was practically jumping through the club, from my friends in one zone to the DJ's booth shouting, screaming, singing and dancing in front of him. When the curtain falls, I just feel amazing right now. My ears are ringing, and they haven't rung in a long time and that's such a good thing really.

4. Never write posts when you're a bit drunk: Or maybe do it only when you're a bit drunk. Pardon the meta-bloggerism, but I am sorry if this post sounds a bit incoherent, I blame the alcohol. Good fucking night.

Not to be confused with 'Lovelight'

2006-11-29T04:54:00.000-08:00

Kris Menace Feat Fred Falke - Fairlight A friend sent me this. He says it's inspired by Jean-Michel Jarre. It has the fairlight synthesizer. It's old school. That's all.

(A regular blogger would probably waffle something like this: "Whilst this is not quite the 'Discopolis' that we wished for from judicious Kris Menace, and not quite the cheesy-but-doesn't-hurt-your-teeth french house we'd have imagined from Fred Falke - the collaboration of the two creates, a, umm, ermm, flabbergasting - yes yes that's it! - result. Check it out yo, kids!")

Great success!

2006-11-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

Herbert - Moving Like A Train (Smith N Hack Remix) The thing with bloggers is that, sometimes, they feel like google. I know, google bought YouTube, and tookover this place as well. It doesn't matter, that's not what I'm saying. Listen, please. I was saying that... They feel like they should tell everyone things that can be easily found on google! Or wikipedia, or discogs, or whatever for that matter. It's all there, it's the internet, just look it up. And what is this rant good for, you ask? Well, because I really don't care too much who Smith N' Hack is and/or are (haha), almost as much as I don't care who Ingrosso or D. Ramirez are, but seriously: I think the last ones who did the whole running-in-circles circus thing were The Glimmers with 'Frantic', but who cares? Look it up, I'm not one of those information nerds.. Uhh, right. Okie, so this is great. The trumpets, the jazz-house globs, something Ame or someone else from Sonar Kollektiv should steal, or remix. Oh, by the way, here's just a couple of really useful links for those of who want to EXPAND their horizons:

1. Google
2. Discogs
3. Wikipedia

This young blogger won't sell out

2006-11-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

Well, here is my first international post, err, review. Just like blogging, only edited!

I'll keep posting here, of course. Here's just some random picks of the past weekend:

GUY GERBER: sea of sand
DOUBLE: woman of the world
CHAIM: carolin (www.myspace.com/chaimavital)
BOOKA SHADE: darko (booka's air tube mix)
MAGAZINE: shot by both sides
DJ MORPHEUS: i can't live without my radio
THE GLIMMERS: fabriclive 31
BLACKSTROBE: shining bright star (phones industrial mix)
FRANKIE VALLI: beggin' (pilooski edit)
MAKOSSA & MEGABLAST: porque
DEPECHE MODE: sinner in me (villalobos remix)
SOUL MEKANIK: never touch that switch (freeform remix)
WILL SAUL: pause (isolee remix)

Vinyl fetishism

2006-11-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

Double - Woman Of The World (Long Instrumental Version) It's been a while since I yearned for vinyl. I buy records on a daily basis, almost anything I like I buy, but this time, this isn't just about consumerism. It's about wanting to hold the material. See it actually spin slowly on the turntable. Smell it knowing you're holding a timeless record. Not to sound too erotic, but this is actual humane craving for the manifestation of abstract art as material. Todd Terje was there before me, of course, re-editing this in an explicitly wonderful way under his Tangoterje alias, which is something you should seek out as well if you haven't already. Also, Pilooski has just re-dubbed it and you can listen here on the Phonica store. I found it a bit odd it wasn't in the Cosmic Excursions compilation, released not long ago, alongside other italo-disco mega-classics. It has been featured on both recent Ame's 'Mixing' set and Henrik Schwarz's DJ Kicks, so it's been getting a proper newly founded buzz by the competent audiences. Nevertheless, it made this blogger's past weekend in isolated Israel much better.

I love you all the time/ Except when you are mine

2006-11-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

The Lovely Feathers - Frantic First, well, I want to declare I want this to be a short post. Kitsune really deserve more than my usual paragraph lengthed writings, and I'm not in the mood for a long academic dissection of the label and its' releases, which sounds boring already. This song actually serves as a pretext for talking about Kitsune's new compilation: Kitsune Maison 3. It's also my current second favourite tune out of the compilation, and since posting Simian Mobile Disco's 'I Believe' would have been too obvious, and I still needed to write about Maison 3 - you, well, got this.

People think of abstract things in two main ways. They attribute colours and tastes to them. When I think of Kitsune, I think of really sweet candy, I can almost taste it, DFA kind of tastes like meat to me, Todd Terje like sushi, and the list goes on... Most of the music that I know is completely tasteless, it's either grey or just too vague to fathom. So, by this introduction, you're supposed to know Kitsune is pretty special to me. I like handling special things with care and loving hands (no Tim Goldsworthy reference intended). Before you panic, I'd like to note that Maison 3 is great. Yes, bloggers heard almost all these songs before. Yes, that's what you get for being a damn blogger. Kitsune are like the popular kids on MySpace, bands are sucking up to them, sending them demos and promos first. They don't even have to leave comments on others' pages to get noticed. They spot a band they like, and out of utter tremble near the Gods of taste, the band succumbs.

Kitsune could have been great bloggers. When you're synonymous to 'cool', when you invented hipsterness before NME killed it with their dirty hands, the responsiblity is so great you just have to fuck up. Sadly, that is what happened here. They released it just too soon, like premature ejaculation - you're cumming, this *is* an orgasm, but you're just a joke afterwards. They could have waited before releasing it, us kids get bored of things too fucking quick. They could have lurked more on MySpace, maybe wait for the track Nightmoves promised to make for them to be done, I don't know. Being a tastemaker is similar to being a fashion designer - you have to predict what's gonna happen, what things will actually look like. In this case, we've heard the songs already. We *know* the bands. Freeform Five? Yes, we all sympathize the fivers. Simian Mobile Disco? Been there, loved that. Boys Noize? Come on, that's kids stuff.

So, what is there to say about Kitsune that will regain their self-confidence? So what if it's the worst Kitsune compilation, it still is -Kitsune-. They still convinced Simian to write a new, so-so-so amazing track that you won't hear anywhere else too soon. They still dug Oh No! Oh My! out of their sorry ripe graves, and put the almost only good song from their self-titled 2006-released album here ('I Have No Sister' being the second one). It's still a way to show Erlend Oye that we truly care about you, darling. So, an outsider could observe that Kitsune is choosing the cutey-pie electro-indie poppy direction, but that's just rubbish. It basically sounds like music desperately trying to be pop. But really, I love you Kitsune, would you still be my MySpace friends?

Oh, let's see if this was short like I hoped. Let me scroll up... Oh no.. Well, I guess I lied.

Ah just wanna dance

2006-11-15T03:18:00.000-08:00

Superthriller - Superthriller Motherfucker Hey hey, hold on. What's going on? Is everybody confused and think this is still fucking 2003 and we should still put out punk-funk records? Yah, we had CSS, we had New Young Pony Club, we had Kaos, please. Everyone sing along in Shaun Ryder voices: Superthriller, motherfucker! Superthriller, motherfucker! Your mother, your mother, everybody just fuck your mother. Why do I feel so obliged to dance to someone dissing me? And now it's Tal's verse: Yes, motherfucker, this is 2006, dancepunk's not dead. J. Murphy's legacy shalt rule on. Answer me though, what makes this narcissistic self-reference thing so popular these days? Is sexy back? Uhh, do we really need an ironic self-aware wink to get us closer to the object? Lacan motherfucker. Also, you momfuckers who haven't listened to Superthriller's DISGUSTING full album from two years ago, you're officially prohibited from running around saying you know what electro-funk really is.

Disco yes disco

2006-11-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

Escort - Love In Indigo Not beardo-disco, hippie-house, disco re-edit, nu-disco or nu-rave, this is *authentic* disco. Escort are releasing their 12"s in admirable tranquility. Original, underground, New York material, the very type people like Rub N' Tug, Idjut Boys and Prince Language put under their pillow at night. Following 'Starlight', we're lucky to have another treasure. Escort's so real, you might think they invented a time machine in the 70s, configured it to '2006', and now they're making fun of all of us. Could they predict the current disco revival? Are they making big sisters ESG proud? When's the Morgan Geist remix? Who am I talking to? But seriously, the secret seems to be the ability to sound so goddamn LIVE on my pathetic mp3 player, with my lousy Creative soundcard. Just like other disco revivalist acts in New York-- The Rapture for example, the producers don't go to sleep till the bass, the guitars, the drums, the piano sound as live as possible. What else can shake the bored listener a bit? The listener that's so used to clicking and skimming through songs on his ever-changing playlists, the listener that got so bored with the same VSTs again and again, the listener that knows what you're gonna say before you say it. Who doesn't want to feel truly alive for 3:49 minutes?

A: They died with ideology

2006-11-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

John Tejada - What Happened To Manners? Off John Tejada's excellent 'Cleaning Sounds is a Filthy Business' (strong candidate for the Coolest Album Title Award this year, along with Jay Haze's 'My Depresseion Ended When Your Mom Cooked Me Breakfast'), this work is amazingly inspired by Booka Shade, only slightly deeper and rougher. It's a dark, scary piece, which will make you dream of synthesizers haunting you. But don't be terrified, can you both imagine ghosts-- in the vein of Claude Vonstroke's magnificent remix of the recent Luke Solomon 'Ghouls', and, at the same time, experience a true moment of bliss? Whether you can or can't, give it a shot. I just wonder what room size could fold this track's genuine nature. For now, my head is more than enough.

Shame on you

2006-10-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

Joakim - Lonely Hearts New Joakim tracks are always a reason to rejoice. This track, from Joakim's forthcoming "Monsters & Silly Songs", out on January 2007 (that's not as far as it seems) on Versatile, sounds like a great wrap-up for a party in a smokey club, after you've danced your brains out to Martin Buttrich's 'Full Clip', D. Ramirez's Bodyrox 'Yeah Yeah' remix and Simian Mobile Disco's remix of the new Rapture single, yes-- the perfect mellow closure for a great off-kilter dance party. But yeah, why must the reference point be the party? It could also be the song you surprise your friends with in the special little mixtape you make for them, you twat. It could also just be a great rock ballad, especially when it comes from Joakim, one of the prominent producers of a scene that's usually construed as decadent, adhering listen-and-forget values, wherein new charts are made up each week, tracks are being used and thrown away-- the one where an album released last month is considered "old", that kind of dedadence I'm talking about-- it's easier for me to identify. People who live this world of immediate satisfactions do have a chance. That's why I see huge sentiment in those lyrics about "lonely hearts/ lonely space/ lonely race/ lonely face".

Next year: Ibiza

2006-10-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Lindstrom - Contemporary Fix (Disco Mix) There must be something about the Norwegian scene. I think it's different, or idiosyncratic, in the way that the Norwegian house and disco are heavily influenced by the local jazz scene. It seems as though the intriguing figures of the scene all have thorough and conventional jazz knowledge. Mungolian Jet Set, for example, contributed their impressive jazz-funk angular stylings to Lindstrom's 'A Blast Of Loser', giving it a special spot in the Cosmic Disco Hall Of Fame, alongside Nick Chacona's brilliant 'Through The Door', Mungolian Jet Set's own remix of LSB's 'Original Highway Delight' and The Emperor Machine's 'Yes No Egg', all current throbbing, pulsating classics, but above all stands out this track. Lindstrom, and let's be honest about it, might have released an abundance of records on his Feedelity label, but he hasn't really surpassed the blatant amazement 'I Feel Space', or 'Mighty Girl' perhaps, produced. For most of us, Hans-Peter Lindstrom is the Nu Italo (I know, that's almost as dumb as Nu Rave) name behind one of last year's biggest records, 'I Feel Space', and not too much more than that. This is of course quite flawed. While duos like Simian Mobile Disco release their immediate dancefloor bombs, Justice and the Ed Banger crew being so horribly fashionable you just can't avoid them and you inevitably find yourself dancing to that heavy electro frenzy of theirs, Lindstrom is one of the few real musicians out there, real modern musicians (as opposed to post-modern) that make blissful dance music, forgive me if this seems like a profanity but-- a composer, I'm afraid. Do not be fooled to think I'm in any way against fashion in music, or that I think that it makes it any less relevant. I have the utmost respect for Simian Mobile Disco, especially for encapsulating lesbo-porn and the type of electro London loves and Kitsune signs in that video for 'Hustler', and Cut Copy definitely knew how to assemble all the good trendy music in their recent Fabric mix. Anyway, this track is Hans-Peter's evil grin to the face of the tsk-tsk-tskers, to the face of hipster 19 y/o DJs with a ripped mp3 of 'I Feel Space'. It has a divine 303 solo, oriental guitars and vibes of something you notice completely unprepared listening to one of those boring Cafe Del Mar compilations. I'd hug any DJ that plays this track in a cheesy Trentemoller-Radioslave-Jesse Rose-Klaxons-Hot Chip psuedo-eclectic mix, because I know they just won't.

I'm terribly sorry

2006-10-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

I lied to you all. I'm actually deaf.

Sexy Pancreas

2006-09-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back (Freeform Reform) "I'm bringing sexy back/ Them other boys don't know how to act/ I think it's special what's behind your back/ So turn around and I'll pick the slack" When Justin Timberlake sings about sexy back, and I ask this in all seriousness, does he mean that he's back? Does he mean that he's bringing being sexy back to fashion? Or does he just talk about him having a really sexy back? And when he's bringing sexy back, does he bring it in the same way Christina is back to basics? These are all extensively important pop culture questions that need to be answered.

Favourite Tune Of The Second

2006-09-02T05:15:00.000-07:00

Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancing (Erol Alkan Carnival Of Light Rework) - Well, it's true. Erol keeps kids dancing. Even when they don't feel like it. So, after we've settled that remixes don't really have to have direct coherence to the original, in regard of quality, and that reworks and edits can improve greatly (seek MUSTAPHA3000's elaboration on Headman's 'Moisture', and Justus Kohncke's disco brilliance with Zero 7's 'You're My Flame' for more clues) , I will have to confess that I haven't really given much attention to Scissor Sisters' original version. Erol stripped down the vocals but kept some for the end (more on that later), and created an almost entirely new beat that is derived by tiny loops from the original. This new beat was massive enough to be extended on a 8-minute space, that's twice the size of the song, obviously to be played in Trash and its' companion clubs. But not only, as this is not an heavy production along the lines of his Franz Ferdinand remix, but an awesome dance tune like his DFA-esque take on Hot Chip's 'Boy From School'. Erol cunningly kept some of the vocals for the end of the tune, exposing the excessive build-up he manifested, in a way that the original, or one of the other remixes on the single release can act as the natural beginning to the end of this great rework.

Put Some Music To Yr Trouble

2006-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

War times. This sad situation has burdened all of us. Every person in this world aspiring to peacefulness and living a normal life suffers in a certain way from this war. As I see it, some FUCKING AWESOME MUSIC must be the soothing cure for our pain. Right, guys? Anyway, I definitely wish that sometime, in the visible future, the excessive prologues that come before the actual music won't be necessary (let technology do its magic!).

So, I have a special heartwarming mix for you all - by a certain VERY special friend who wishes to remain nameless (but obviously the mp3's ID3 tag exposes it all):

Who Are The Warriors Mix

Barry De Vorzon - Theme From The Warriros
Serious Symptoms - Krise
Telex - Do Worry (Kid Alex Remix)
FSOL - Papua New Guinea (Andrew Weatherall Full Length Remix)
Goldfrapp - Fly Me Away (C2 Remix 1)
Tres Demented - Brainfreeze
Memory Control One - Basic (Beppe Loda Remix)
Busta Rhymes Feat. Missy Elliott - How We Do It Over Here
Dirk Technic - I Love You
The Futureheads - Worry About It Later (Switch Remix)
Nightlife Unlimited - I Love The Night In New York City
Boney M - Night Flight To Venus (Flying Squad Edit)
Djuma Soundsystem - Les Djinns (Trentemoller Remix)
Rodammal Feat. Claudia Franco - Insomnia (Ame Remix)

As your eyes can vouch, this mix consists of some exciting old/new sweets. From the new Trentemoller remix of Djuma Soundsystem, to Switch's craaaaazy remix of The Futureheads, to Tim Sweeney's Boney M classic re-edits, techno classicists FSOL's Papua New Guinea, Carl Craig, etc. Again, your eyes are better judges for you than I can ever be.

If this didn't melt your heart just enough, there's a batch of semi-underground fresh mixes floating around the net, just for you. For instance, I probably don't need to hasten you over to TAPE, for the mix Nightmoves made for them. Also, Tronik Youth, who has made some nice bootlegs and remixes so far (The Gossip's hot 'Listen Up') has a good electro-house mix at his myspace, which sums up July 06' pretty well (be sure to wait for his ultra-cool The Gossip 'Standing In The Way Of Control' mix). The This Is Not An Exit club has posted their fresh Volume 4 mix, which has one of the more interesting tracklists I've seen as of late. And yes, this batch wouldn't be complete without the new fun Beats In Space mixes, starting with a Munk mix, Citizen Kane, Jacques Renault and Dirk (from Eskimo Recordings) & Tonic. So much fun!

And to finish this off, let's try TRADITIONAL mp3blogging shall we!

Switch - Wait Till I Show You This

Not a real post but...

2006-07-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Well, hello. I'm sort of sorry I haven't posted anything lately, I've just finished this semester and I've had my exams plus there's a war going on in Israel (this is, and thank god for that, not another one of those tear-inducing war blogs) and Lebanon and possibly the entire middle east soon, so I believe the lack of postage has gone undetected, or so I hope.

I'm still imprisoned in the Israeli army, hopeful will officially get released in 3 months. Meantime, I'm conjuring up a real post for you beloved not-hipster-at-all kiddies. Will emerge later.

Do you like Peter Bjorn & John's Young Folks? If you like sheer, pure and unadulterated pop - you do. Did you like Writer's Block, the album? Why, yes you did. So, I suppose, the hail for Beyond The Wizards Sleeve psychedelic extended version/remix is inevitable.

Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve's Remix)

My chart for July, I guess:

Hot Chip - Boy From School (Hot Chip Rework)
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
Poni Hoax - She's On The Radio
Trabant - The One (Williams Remix)
Quiet Village Project - Circus Of Horrors
Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks (BTWS's Remix)
Fabric Live 29 - Cut Copy
Rub N' Tug - Better With A Spoonful Of Leather
Kissy Sell Out - Keanu Reeves (Grunge Version)
Play Paul - Lalaland (Ed Bangers Remix)

I don't want no Roger Waters

2006-06-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

I just want some Nile Rodgers!

(in response to Roger Waters coming to perform in Israel today and causing superfluous traffic problems all over the country)

QuickChart()

2006-06-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Don't mind the header please, I am studying Computer Science right now and sort algorithms in JAVA. Ugh. Here's 5 prime selections from the past week:

Alex Gopher - Big Is Better

[ MSTRKRFT, let this be a lesson to all of you! ]

WhoMadeWho - The Loop (Green Version)

[ Calexico, you should take notes! ]

Daniele Baldelli - Atlantide

[ Thank you so very much, Gomma ]

Peter Bjorn And John - Young Folks

[ The Pipettes, are you writing this down? ]

Serge Santiago - Atto D'amore

[ Check out Serge's remarkable mix @ BIS ]

Steve Holt!

2006-06-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Mock & Toof - Tight Humps

Yeah, so the Black Eyed Peas were kind enough to visit warzone Israel, I missed it of course, as it is one of my main hobbies-- doing nothing with myself. They were also kind enough to try to suck up a bit and sing 'Hava Nagila', great idea guys. That sucks up to us as much as a foreigner guy saying shalom or saying that he likes humus. Nevermind, I bet it was Fergie's idea anyway. On the exact same narrative, Mock & Toof have taken Their Humps and discofied it up. They've done a remarkable job and I'm most definitely not just saying that because their label, Tiny Sticks, is making eyes sparkle again in the British dance scene. The track is available gratuitously on their myspace page, but I decided to make your life easier and upload it to YSI. Hey, at least that way you get to avoid the irritating social network thingie.

And this is the compensation for lack of a post (AKA My Weekly Chart):

Hot Chip - Won't Wash
Muniche Machine - Get On The Funk Train
Headman - Moisture (MUSTAPHA 3000 Remix)
Allez Allez - Allez Allez
In Flagranti - Uncanny Hinting
The Kreeps - All I Wanna Do Is Break Some Hearts
The Knife - Marble House (Booka Shade Remix)
Dondolo - Dragon (Brennan Green Remix)
Lindstrom - A Blast Of Loser (MJS 9406 Remix)
Kaos - Cerebral Tremolo (Brennan Green Edit)
Betty Botox - I'm An Indian Three
Kill The DJ - Mixed By Chloe & Ivan Smagghe
Tres Demented - Shez Satan
The Gossip - Listen Up (JD Twitch Remix)
Morgan Geist - Skyblue Pink
MSTRKRFT - The Looks

OCCAM 5000

2006-05-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Have I become that old hat who constantly spews drivel on one progressive rock band? This may be true if that progressive band is actually a fresh electro-soul outfit composed mainly of synthesizer nerds. Just your everyday, extremely talented, not even socially autistic (Yes, I'm talking about you Gary Numan) nerds.

Hot Chip, duh, have selected great remixers for their singles so far: from ferocious Solid Groove, to potential legendary kompakt pop wizard boy Justus Kohncke and Optimo's ingenious Naum Gabo, London's own Larry Levan (ha) - Erol Alkan and now Cosmic Sandwich.

Erol's (that guy is almost everywhere today, which is essentially amazing: Beyond The Wizards Sleeve's new release, remixes of The Klaxons and Justice, producing The Long Blondes, and I read somewhere that the MUSTAPHA 3000 moniker of upcoming Headman remix fame and more is actually him, [can anyone confirm?] also check out the brilliant mix on BIS) own notion of DFA-ing the already DFA-ish Hot Chip 'Boy From School' song was pretty brave, you try to beat the disco revisionists in their own realm. Cosmic Sandwich opt a summertime attack, creating an Alan Braxe-y beat so intricate it keeps me moving even after the signifcant abridgement of the lyrics ("We try... We try..."). It does make me contemplate a bit though, do remixes like this make Tom Findlay jealous? Don't you think there should be a better word for re-interpreting songs than "remix"? And what if some Sonar Kollektiv (should be careful saying that) fellow would take a shot at remixing Hot Chip? I imagine that could work out nicely.

Hot Chip - Boy From School (Cosmic Sandwich Remix)

You should buy the album from Pure Groove. They have copies now on EMI. You should buy it. From Pure Groove. The Album. The Warning. Buy. It. Now. Like I did. Now. Good. I would also like to acclaim Pure Groove for taking such relatively low shipment prices to Israel, compared to Phonica, which is an absolutely amazing record shop, that indeed tried to steal 44 pounds for shipment from me. Luckily, being the poor Israeli soldier that I am, my credit card company declined the order. Woo, so lucky having no money in the bank! So yes, back to music, what else did I like lately? I'll try to create a little chart of my listening choices right now:

Claude Vonstroke - The Whistler

Delia Gonzales & Gavin Russom - Revelee (DFA Remix)

It's so hot in here, so take off all your clothes. Timeless, right on time, ever-fresh, hype-justified D-F-A galaxy beats.

New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream

Go check out their myspace page, one of the smartest shameless groups around.

Booka Shade - In White Rooms (Electrochemie Remix)

How hard is it to remix Booka Shade? Very. How good is this one? Very.

The Klaxons - Atlantis To Interzone

808 state-esque synths, curious guitar arrangements, the Nightmoves hype behind everything, Erol's admiration and already an appearance at Trash, 20 Jazz Funk Greats giving the initial approval and TAPE pumping it up all through, resistance is futile.

Betty Botox - Impossible Dreams

Haven't heard anything from the new G4 Faggot release, has anyone heard and can testify? If it's as good as the Betty Botox stuff from 2005 then we can put the disco re-edit crown on Twitch's head, scarcely surpassing masters like Greg Wilson & Tom Moulton. Also, Todd Terje (Tangoterje), Prins Thomas and, in a couple of years, Tim Sweeney are someplace of magnitude in the monarchy.

Outkast - The Mighty O

Gabriel Ananda - Ihre Personliche Glucksmelodie (Dominik Eulberg Remix)

I will have to admit it now, Gabriel Ananda is my discovery for 2006. Those are the surprises being a curious, eager, 21 years old music zealous bring.

The Modettes - White Mice

Another indirect Optimo reference in this chart, my musical journies are pretty straightforward. Betty Botox reminded me of Optimo's Hang The DJ pt.2 CD 2 (with all the goodies!), and that reminded me of Rough Trade's powerful Post Punk collection. Great shit. Great -dance- shit.

Bonjour! C'est Pet Shop Boys - Heart?

2006-05-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I just had to quickly post this conversation in real time. I think this little chit-chat illustrates how music overcomes any language barriers and is a language by itself. This DJ guy from Brazil was messaging me on MSN, and the guy doesn't know any English, but still wants to talk. So what does he do? He is talking to me with track names. As simple as that. Like: Hi there, The Cure - Let's Go To Bed? No, The Smiths - Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. You could basically use these to converse! So we talked a bit about life, the future, politics, relationships and ambitions, and then a tad about music. Eventually, I got tired of his loser electro and tried to use some humour. Well, I think it speaks for itself, just notice that the weird fonts are actually my name in Hebrew (and there's also a special mp3 present for you hiding there):

Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
hi
טל says:
helo
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
what ultimate tuni?
טל says:
rekid - next stop chicago (jesse rose remix)
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
coburn-give me love(lutzenkirchen remix)
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
2Raumwohnung & Moguai-sex secret(Moguai rmx)
טל says:
the knife - we share our mothers health (trentemoller remix)
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
ultimate silen shout
טל says:
ultimate respect
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
good godd
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
Infadels - Jagger 67 (Cass & Mangan Rmx)
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
Lowalk & DJ LOKi - Seamrider (Original Mix
טל says:
riot in belgium - the acid never lies (boyz noize mix)
טל says:
cass & mangan ultimate
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
no
טל says:
no ultimate then
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
OK
טל says:
britney spears - toxic
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
no no
טל says:
robbie williams - angels
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden sends: Lowalk & DJ LOKi - Seamrider(Original Mix
cancel(Alt+Q)
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
no no
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden sends:
2Raumwohnung & Moguai-sex secret(Moguai rmx)
cancel(Alt+Q)
Mac Dave...We Love Sundays Ayia Napa Garden says:
the knife ?
טל says:
yes

It was 1974, you had an afro, it was pretty intense I was feeling it

2006-05-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Jim Noir - My Patch (Hot Chip Remix)

If you're a club owner, the first time you should listen to this is in your club. Granted, this is combined with Booka Shade's, uhh, In White Rooms, or something, from one side and Rekid's Diamond Black from the other. This is the most minimal, Crosstown Rebels-ish, "big", remix production work of Hot Chip, while other works being the usual Hot Chipian synthy and bleepy Microkorg-mania (see their Architecture in Helsinki Do The Whirlwind rendition for more clues). If we talk in Hot Chip terms, the closest to this I heard were the Back From The Future b-sides and the monstrous DFA Just Like We Breakdown remix. Put the quasi-academic banter aside, just play this in your club. Or, vis-a-vis, steal your dad's big stereo, get your cousin to play with the lights and frolic.

Digitalism - Jupiter Room (Martian Assault Edit)

Kitsune. That's one label with a personality. I imagine Kitsune as being a bunch of super-stylish Parisians, working at their one ("we're anti globalization") store, defining delicately the most accurate electronic paradigms. They're taste-designers. Culture artists. Just take a look at their latest forthcoming release, Kitsune Maison 2, one of the more impressive collections of fashion-not-fashion yupster music. Finally, an un-Nag-Nag-Nag, un-electroclash-Larry-Tee-Atomizer-yucky Adam Sky/Adamski song, Simian Mobile Disco's at their talked about, best work of date, Hustler. Joakim at a post-Tigersushi intricately arranged disco-not-disco-punk track, I Wish You Were Gone, that of the original been already posted right here. Fox'N'Wolf being the next thing you should say you've known from the beginning (in a Todd Terje, AKA "I saved Lindstrom's Another Station single from boredom-death" Todd Terje remix). The Lipps Inc madness of the Just Brothers' Popper (remixed here, of course), old school Azzido Da Bass, the best remix (not featured in Silent Alarm Remixed, ha) of Bloc Party, which is Boyz Noize's usual magnificent production, and much more. So this boils down to basically, decisions. Cold, rational, decisions. I could virtually pick any track from this album and post it. But I won't encumber you with the blogger's dilemma, I just chose this great edit of Digitalism. The contention about Digitalism is that every track or remix of theirs sound like it's a Zdarlight mash-up. I have only one thing to say about that: Who cares? More Zdarlight! More Palermo Disko Machine! So yeah, this does resemble Zdarlight, but there's nothing negative in that observation.

There's a lot more to talk about of course, like the new Glimmers record, Rekid's LP, some iForward Russia dissing to be made, the big Gnarls Barkely question (hype or not?!) but as someone great once said before me, my time is running out.

Edit: Just another little treat for you Kitsune lovers, Captain Comatose's Khan & Snax are behind this, Brennan Green on the edit position = fun fun fun.

Kaos - Cerebral Tremolo (Brennan Green Edit)

Hi-Bye

2006-04-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Psst, hi. Tal here. I didn't neglect you, I just started studying in the university, and found out it's harder to maintain a normal "life" when you're "doing something", or something. I am not sure about that yet, though. Anyway, I would have loved to stick around and chat, really, but I haven't finished my homework yet. It's not you, it's me. Definitely. You've been awesome. Great laugh. Interesting anecdotes. Er, yeah, I'm gonna have to take off now. But not before I will give you the end of the post gift.

Juan, two weeks ago in Israel

The Juan Maclean - Love Is In The Air (Mock & Toof Remix)

So obviously Mock & Toof are pretty hot, and it's indeed surprising why Kitsune hasn't stolen them yet, but that shouldn't worry you too much right now-- This track is a killer. This year is definitely going to be the year of small indie-electro groups such as MSTKRFT, Justice, Mock & Toof, Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism (can't leave Fox'N'Wolf, the Lo-Fi-Fnk meets Fannypack and Riot in Belgium behind, of course) are already dripping their stuff slowly. SMD's Hustler, that I mentioned in the previous post, is going to be featued on the much-anticipated Kitsune Maison 2, MSTRKRFT's LP this year, etc etc. Daughters of Invention have already taken the debut of exposing the greatness of Mock & Toof, but that's what blogs, that's what I heard anyway, are supposed to do these days-- promote and increase the hype. Without me, where The Arctic Monkeys would have been? I mean, seriously. Don't feel like presenting this track in a Pitchfork-We-Are-The-World style, so I'll just say that remixes today have their complete standalone existence and this one demonstrates it pretty accurately.

By the way, all the kind people who e-mail me with FREE KORN AND RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS MP3S and HELLO NURSE AWESOME BAND promotion material, I would be really happy if you could sponser a planet ticket to Sonar this year, do you have something like that? I promise to post "NEW MP3S AND COVER ART FROM THE BRONX!!!" if you do that. I promise I'll tell everyone about your bands when I'm at Barcelona! Er, thanks.

More posts and songs to come. I have actually heard some great music lately. Meanwhile, the blogger.com neighbours TAPE are great at what they're doing.

And finally, to those of you who would like to listen to Juan's amazing set (and a lot of local Israeli DJ's nice... track... selections...) you can do that at here.

Edit: (OK, DFA didn't request me to remove the file, but... a bird whispered. You can hear the remix at Mock & Toof's myspace page, but the compensation is in the shape of Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things, off their Transparent Things debut on Tirk. I've heard parts of it (they've already released EP's that are almost the entire album, the last one Ankle Injuries was especially fine), and it's great. Whomadewho meets Can? Would that be a nice description? They have the whole punk-funk thing going without sounding like a The Rapture replica. My prediction: Transparent Things is one of the best albums of 2006. Now buy it, when it's out)

Nekksttizzdaaaeeeeee

2006-03-31T19:34:00.000-08:00

Stepping out of the door, sliding down on it, bursting into tears. The cretin everyday men of my army base are trying to cheer me up, but back then, when she left me, I didn't know that their truly silly attempt at making me feel better, as a men brotherhood gesture of empathy was so unexpected and had such a miraculous positive effect on me, that, looking back, it made me realize great things may happen to you when you least expect them to occur. "Life is full of surprises", our cynical way of thinking made this sentence sound so old, but maybe that's what enhances the effect when good things do happen arbitrarily, like a shady case of multiple coincidences you just have to stop and ask "Hey, how the hell did I get here?". So ya, that was then, and now I hear my hero Juan Maclean is coming to play in Israel, and when I first heard it I got so ecstatic I felt my year is clearly and undoubtfully going to be excellent, but then even something less predictable happened (remember Juan is coming to Israel, out of all the goddamn places in the world, and middle-fucking-east especially) - I am most likely going to meet my hero *in person* and show him around in Israel (say Humus!)!!! How awesome is that?

I think thorough research on the sociological impact "the internet" has done to the world needs to be carried out, like the internet made it possible for artists and their crowd to get so close (see the Myspace case, which allows you to be a "friend" of your idols), which completely blurries the borders between artists and their crowd. Moreover, thanks to "blogging" and being able to live your life in a distinct exhibitionist manner, it is obvious one would rant about their "special" anecdotes about their quasi-distant heroes. So you get a shitload of information which brings you even closer to the artist - you know more about them since the internet generates some sort of a profile. This blog is no different than the others, and I just shared with the world the fact that I will meet one of my personal techno legends.

Speaking of techno legends, I was listening to a Justus Kohncke live set from a month ago, and he had some amazing covers there (Oye-style), like singing over the International Pony's Our House organ with no vocoder, covering Chic's Good Times with the Elan background beat and a piano, and re-editing Timecode in a funkier fashion. That kind of made me nostaglic for old techno classics and I quickly downloaded 808 State's In Yer Face, which is just phenomenal. Some moments later, I recalled one of the tracks that as a child left such a HUGE impact on me I couldn't stop thinking about it till I found out what it was, and for a child with poor to no English knowledge, no internet (think 10? years ago, wow, it sounds so far away) and no other way of getting music it is definitely a hard task. Imagine the joy once I found out it was Moby's 'Next Is The E (Club Mix)'. So ya, grabbed that pretty quickly and listened to it again. Wow. Nothing changed. Just knew better how to appreciate it than the last time. It does sound 'old' but in a great way. So who cares. Played it again. And again. Over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal. Yes, you know, the joy of repetition really is in me. And Hot Chip is in me too, that's understood. But you know, as an old self-confessed rave zealot Mr. Sontag ironically respects one of his mentors in a remix to one of his pretty boring tracks on his last LP, Hotel. So, I think it's both nice and sad. Tiga knows how to cherish the hardcore rave contractors he grew up on (i.e Moby), and it's just sad that great techno guys "lose" it after some time. Like, I could stand Play, a bit, and 18 just pissed me off but I didn't even bother listening to Hotel. Why would someone who knows he's so good at one area wanna desperately succeed in some other one, and not that he didn't succeed, he did, but disappointed many a technofreak crowd. Oh well, we can only rejoice with the old tracks and newcomers' (soon in the post) works.

Moby - Next Is The E (Club Mix)

From old classics to new classics, whoa, what an elegant move. I usually have one or two songs looped for a while is all that I can handle musically (which is pretty mp3 blog compatible, if you think about it). The other one is The Lift Boys' Liftvooyzzzz, first dropped by Optimo, released in a very limited number of copies, completely and utterly amazing, heavily inspired by influential Jean-Michel Jarre's Equinoxe series (Equinoxe Pt 5). Don't call it off just because it's "inspired", it's a totally new interpretation and is to be taken seriously as a modern techno classic in the premium line of tracks like Mental Cube's Q among others. The boys added the cruical drums to raise the speed a bit, sped up the original and used a happy whistle and siren effects that contribute to the rave mood. Oh god, it's so good.

The Lift Boys - Liftvooyzzzz

Here's the original masterpiece for the extension of your great musical knowledge.

Jean-Michel Jarre - Equinoxe Pt. 5

On some other hands, Erol's remix of Hot Chip (Boy From School) has been talked about in many places and as you know me I am not the one to be ignorant about these hot types of chippies. The news: it is great. I don't have much to say about it except a billion of things, but seriously, I think Erol should focus on remixing and DJing. I'm not saying songs entirely produced by him wouldn't be good, they might be great, but I don't really think he needs that. The expectations from an artist who's both a DJ, a remixer and a producer are far greater than from just a guy who DJs and "re-edits" stuff. So just stick with what you do best, and the credit shall follow. It is kind of like MSTRKRFT who are great remixers but what if their album isn't everything it's all hyped up to be? That will make them appear pretty shameful, and people tend to forget the past achievements, but I'm not people, so please, if you haven't, check out their BRILLIANT remix of Metric's Monster Hospital. Also, Simian Mobile Disco's offical best work of date is 'Hustler', the lyrics and vocals are fresh as shit, the beat is huge and the song is packed with goodies, it's delicious. Just when I thought SMD were boring me a bit with 'Clik', this song changes my entire perspective on them. Best work, should I reiterate? The DJ Funk remix of Justice's Let There Be Light demonstrates some impressive sampler work completely converting the song to the miami bass/ghetto tech dome. And also, a little tip: if I were you, yes, you, the little guy reading this text now-- I'd definitely keep an eye on New Young Pony Club. I mean, everyone needs their own little indie pet band, and this one deserves some serious caressing. You all got Mystery Jets already but please, open your hearts, this is for a good cause!

Oh, right, almost forgot, please check out the shit hot DJ mixes at Skull Juice, those kids (seriously, kids) do know what they're doing. They run a great blog too, and DJing influences seem to be The Glimmers, 2 Many DJ's in their ascetic period, uhhh The Outlaws.. too, whatever, it's great.

Oooh! Space!

2006-03-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

that's how you get to space if you don't have Lindstrom's assistance

Lindstrom - I Feel Space (Freeform Five Remix)

Just something to get us addicts through the day till the D&G-RVL(CRLCRGRMX) release.

"So, uhhh, this is coming out, in, uhh, couple of months... uhh I think"

2006-03-18T18:31:00.000-08:00

Goldsworthy, be my unkle!

Well, this is new. Everyone already knows how the "Carl Craig and The Revelee Remix" narrative is probably going to define 2006. Yeah, it also re-positions a stance that's become a cliche already, but just like the idiom saying cliches are always true - this one just gets stronger - DFA is issuing the most important, intelligent, fun, exciting, simultaneously arousing both numb musical know-all crowds and your average simpleton, uhhh MTV2 enthusiast, NME reader type? music on earth today. So, we know that, and what our brilliant Timmy boy Sweeney (BEATS IN SPACE, mon. Just pondering though, he broadcasts it from NYU, what happens when Swooney graduates?) did: On his classical show from January 31st, he brought a new term to the world: music porn. When he drops Revelee and starts talking it really sounds like he's about to come in the studio. He reaches some sort of musical orgasm. So, you listen to a guy who musically masturbates to something and it's pornography in the sense that you both enjoy his enjoyance of the song; like seeing a chick's face distort with pleasure (I guess that resembles the effect of moaning) and in the sense that it makes you wanna listen to it too ("I want what he had"). So yes, some of that stuff can easily create the most erotic and justified hype as of late (so much that some ILM dude pulled the old yet amusing trick of posting a phoney crap tune in disguise of the Craig madness). The second thing Swoonish did kind of relates to memetics, the idea gene that socially infects minds - he talked over most of the track. If you really enjoy it why not shut up and let others too? Well, first everyone got the babble he spewed memorized. Pretty narcissistic, damn it. Also, he doesn't want people to play it but he wants to play it himself! The on-song drivel solves this paradox. Play but don't play. I got it but you don't. Maybe it was DFA who asked him to do it, but it left all the blogger soulseek kiddies (self-aware irony intended) to depserately try to radio-rip it to infinity.

Shit robot or disco?

2006-03-06T12:30:00.000-08:00

Hey, what's that? A package? Who could have sent me a package?!

Oh, a friend from New York, named DFA! How sweet! Let's see what's inside...

That's nice. Some party flyers, various of other cool shit...

And some more stuff...

A Juan Maclean poster!!!!

The LCD gang in a beautiful drawing! Hey there, Nancy!

Erm, OK, I had more pictures to post but blogger.com is being silly. If anyone knows how to solve this problem, tell me. So, after I have shown off enough, I will grant you with a song. Before that, I would like to thank the DFA person who sent me everything, I don't know if you'd want me to mention your name here, and I guess it doesn't matter to you but I want you to know you've made your #1 fan in Israel even more dedicated. Also, I suppose that people in the know wouldn't have such a hard time guessing who it is :)

So, posting a DFA song you haven't heard before is pretty adequate here I presume, but I don't have anything that can really surprise you, have you heard Rapture's 'alabama sunshine' featured on the compilation #2? I guess you have, and I guess you know how great and underrated it is. I also don't have Carl Craig's remix of that Delia & Gavin song, hehe, probably because I don't get a salary from the DFA studios, nor am I Tim Sweeney from Beats in Space who also works for DFA, so I guess you can forget about it for now (but here's a Carl Craig mix from the end of last year). I'm not the one to tell you that you should expect great things though. That remix of the Klaxons song is special too, but I don't know how to rip songs off MySpace, so you better try to get there yourself. So, my only relative advantage is my location. Which is Israel. Which is not very exciting. There's a fun Israeli singer-songwriter called Shy Nobleman who released two albums so far that gained a lot of praise in the Israeli indie scene. If you heard the stuff you'd realize that our indie scene is more or less usually the world's mainstream pop, so no need to worry. I figure posting shit no one has doesn't mean much since everyone's gonna have it anyway thanks to soulseek, after a week. So what's left to do? Post music you really like and ignore the entire blogging community? Or try to both post music you like *and* try to introduce music you people really probably haven't heard? Good idea. Back to Nobleman, his first LP, 'How To Be Shy', got a lot of critical acclaim and was selected an album of the year by a Rolling Stone critic on the release year. That was exciting for us. The second album 'Beautiful Life', released last year, has the song I'm posting, which is my favourite one from it, it's called 'Baby in The Rain', and I guess that if Paul Epworth produced it'd be treated differently but it doesn't really matter, it's a lot of fun and you don't know it yet! even if you're an ILX regular! I bet!

Sigh.

Shy Nobleman - Baby in The Rain

Woo!

(right, if Shy's music interests you, please buy it. You can buy it through me, I'll get a copy here and send it to you, or you could try http://www.musicaneto.com/ or something. it's not out on a major label or something so I guess you can't get it outside of Israel)

Is that a miniature cymbal in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

2006-03-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

OK, I decided not to post anything today. I just think my energy to submerse in new music and music in general has pretty much drained thanks to this blog. When the listening time translates into 'what the next post is going to be about' it kinda takes some of the fun away. I started this blog hoping I could share my love for the music with everyone, and I think I'm doing that, but I didn't know blogging would affect me so much. I guess I feel generally hollow right now and I need some sort of a refresh.

It's getting hot in here my friend, 'cos London's burning down

2006-02-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

Ugh! I could seriously listen to a whole 2 hour long set of the Booka Shade crew punching their keyboards at random. Accident or not, every synth line, covered by those heavy drums can totally blow my mind away. It makes me feel huge like the soundscape they intend to create. This 'Body Language' interpretation is from their upcoming release 'Movements', out due on April. It goes straight to the stomach, then starts building up slowly from there, until it takes complete control over your entire body. If 2005 was Get Physical's year, this track illustrates music doesn't give a fuck about the average journalist's musical borderlines - it won't stop at 31/12/2005, going to completely ignore the Gregorian calendar, and keep making ground-breaking exciting dualistic (Body & Spirit) music in 2006 till (hopefully) the next millenium bug.

Booka Shade - Body Language (Interpretation)

This track will only be available for a very limited downloads number of 10, mainly out of respect to the Get Physical artists and Booka Shade in particular, and also because I just found out YSI only allows 10 downloads. View this as an opportunity for you to find out how much of the blog's fan you really are - by being aware of how fast you got here! How exciting! Also, the usual procedure of leaving a comment or dropping me a mail will do if you want this song sent to you. If you're an upset lawyer, then I'm sorry dude, you can forget it.

Groove Aramada. Just by saying that name, I presume you'd feel an urge to skip to the next blog, post, whatever. Right? Well, I got news for you. Groove Armada's half - Tom Findlay, released this especially precious record on Tirk. Tirk is home to many a good act, such as New Young Pony Club with the great post-punk hit 'The Get Go', Maurice Fulton's new outfit Syclops with 'The Fly', Fujiya & Miyagi's punk-funk numbers, and of course Tantra's dreamful 'A Place Called Tarot'. A fine home indeed. So, lemme ask ya, What are a great song's requisitions? That'd be A) A pop culture reference people will construe B) An amazing bassline and C) An electro break that will own your heart. Guess what? This one has all three of them! It covers Man Friday's 'Love Honey (Love Heartache)', entrains a killer line and maintains a BPM high enough not to bore the dancer. This is Sugar Daddy's first single release, and it comes with an electro and an acid mix. Oh, and - Tiga likes it. Naturally so should you.

Sugar Daddy - Love Honey (Funk Mix)

Honestly, there's no resemblance whatsoever to the old chill-out beats of 'At The River'. Not that I have anything against Groove Aramda, really. Not that Groove Armada is any relevant in today's minimalistic era of sound.

Now that I know that YSI only gives you the puny amount of 10 downloads, I suppose posting Tiga's digital only release of 'Type Of Guy' won't do any damage (to me, I hope). Buy the album! It's.. it's.. it's very lovely! I tried it and didn't regret it! Mmm, it's also low fat!

The Tiga track is pretty hilarious, and I intend to crosspost with my buddy Let No Man Jack (who's undoubtfully the most interesting Derrida-babbling French-Canadian electro-house-loving Professor in all of that neglected Canadian county in he lives in! I swear) some more ideas and 'theories' about it. If I was him, I'd somehow link it to Lacan and recommend reading 'Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique' or something like that completely disregarding the fact most of you guys probably don't know French, but I'm not. So nyah.

Tiga - Type Of Guy

Wait a second. This post feels a little weird. Did I forget anything?

Hmmm.

What was it?

Hm.

Did I forget the chicken in the oven?

Hmm.

Oh. I know what it is.

HOT CHIP I DIDN'T NEGLECT YOU!!!! NEXT POST I HOPE!!!!!!

Arrest yourself

2006-02-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

Blah blah blah words blah blah blah black blah on a white background blah blah, usually the songs come blah blah after the long, exhausting, list of words, but you've probably developed a foolproof scrolling down technique, blah long list of words just use your mouse, yes, like that, and you'll reach the mp3. It must be down here, this blog is not playing with its loyal readership, if you've been here before you probably know that the format is *text**mp3 link in italic* just follow it! OK, enough, good job! here it is:

Tiga - Far From Home (Digitalism Remix)

[Seriously though, Digitalism are amazing producers that pretty much don't need an introduction but their remix work is pretty genius. They kind of remind me of Rex The Dog, but I hope they will know how to reinvent themselves and not use the same sound over and over. Rex The Dog used more or less the same sound and same remixing ideas with his work. The upside of that is that Rex The Dog does have a unique sound and did make some classic tunes like 'Frequency' and 'I Look Into Mid Air', with the general mood of eclectism that lurks around, it's nice to see an artist with an idiosyncratic fingerprint. The downside is that this specfiic sound drained out pretty quickly, but maybe 2006 holds another major opportunity for Rexy. Digitalism's remix of Tiga is a lot of fun, and shows my predictions that I depicted in the previous post-- about Tiga's album drifting to remix kingdom were pretty correct]

I figure if you don't read this anyway, I might just babble to myself about random stuff not related to music. OK then, yesterday was nice, I got home from the army pretty early, played the piano a bit, ate something, checked mail (keep the encouraging mails coming), took a shower and a friend came over. Haha, this so much fun. Anyway, we didn't know what we wanted to do but we wanted to go out, so I offered the geekiest way of finding where to go, it goes like this: we start driving, we reach an intersection and we both choose 0 or 1 and say it, if we both said 0 or 1 then we go right, if we I say 1 and he says 0 or vice versa we go left (this is XOR, by the way). Well, this didn't get us too far, we decided to stop the game and drive to Ramle, a lovely city filled with Arabs (Afro-Palestinians, to be politically correct) which used to have a rich night life in the 70s, but now it's pretty dead. It's close to my house, and we didn't feel like going somewhere distant. We bought a Belgian waffle (which is actually Arab, or at least made by Arabs, hehe), and ate it in the car because it started raining cats and dogs. It was hella tasty, like a sugar-flavoured pizza (I think it's funny how Middle-Eastern Arabs, settled in Americanized Israel, sell Belgian waffles and French crepes to white Polish kids). Then we drove to a near gas station, entered the yucky grocery store and sat in their sofas. It was really cold. Some kids thought they recognized me from school, but I didn't remember them. We talked about socialism and economy, falling in love and relationships. I really like talking to him. After that, we left the gas station and went home. Oh and here's a song:

Westbam Feat. Nena - Old Scool, Baby (Piano Mix)

[I think I would list 'piano house' as one of my favourite genres. As odd as it may be. This song was played by Sir J. Murphy on the australian Big Day Out (check the previous post). That's what reminded me of it. It's fucking magnificent. I tried to think why I like it so much and I deducted it must be the slow drums, the dreamy female vocals ('we are the high, that's the low'), and finally the heartbreaking piano melody. It's utterly simple. Like the XOR game, utter simplicity generating infinite complexity, sorry, that's dumb. Just listen]

And in our usual Hot Chip section, have you seen the Over and Over video featured on the Hot Chip WEBSITE???? It's awesome! Have you heard the XFM session????? They're so good live!!!! That's all fun and known to everyone, but have you heard 'Careful', the song from their new album, 'The Warning'?????? I suppose you haven't! Well, that's what I am for, right? Here it is, enjoy:

Hot Chip - Careful

A complete review of the album should follow. Needless to say though, the song is more Hot Chip than you can ever imagine. By the way, this post wouldn't have happened without superbadger, thanks for everything mate. Feel well. Occam's Razor is 100% sponsered by superbadger, running for the Torino blogging olympics.

EOF!

Por favor, enjoy this set made by Occam's Razor acquaintance.

By the way, if you want any of the old tracks I posted here and can't be downloaded anymore, mail me or leave a comment. I will send them to you. There should be a list of those mp3s on the right soon.

--

--

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Do you fancy some Fancy?

What''s your favourite colour?

2006-02-05T17:21:00.000-08:00

This is exactly what my blog was created for. My hero, THE man behind DFA RECORDS 2006 (and Tim Goldsworthy of course!), James Murphy in a new DJ set! He dropped Chicago, some Liquid Liquid, Digitalism's Zdarlight which is one of my favourite tracks from last year and other stuff. Check it out now! Furthermore, I urge you to check out the latest Beats in Space show, because Tim is going on a tour, and he decided to drop ALL the best tunes to be released this year. You can find stuff like an instrumental version of Hot Chip's (this name is getting popular!) Boy From School (from the extraodinary LP coming out on April this year, trust me guys-- it's gonna be maddd). and most importantly - the DFA instrumental (very mental) remix of Tiga's Far From Home, which brings us to the next subject.

(Murphy, Sonar 2005, directing his show. Picture by: me)

Look what I found in Tiga's horoscope:

This year you are going to release an OK album, since Jupiter is in regression, and the songs were not that amazing too. You will regret collaborating with people from a distant country (Belgium, possibly). Good news are that this album is going to be a great solid ground for remixes. Your friend Morgan has already remixed one of yours songs (the stars are not very musical, but it might be Good As Gold). The next big hint is DFA's remix of Far From Home, it's a true masterpiece and a tough candidate for the Best DFA Remix Award. Since you and Murphy are the same zodiac sign, refer him to this: the future holds great things for DFA-- Shit Robot looks and sounds promising, the remix introduces a real progression in the DFA-ish sound which everyone tries to emulate, it just gets so smoother and slicker, new acts are being signed and if this continues 2006 is going to be DFA's year. Back to Tiga, as much as avoiding the Guerollito/Nite Versions scenario whereas the remix albums were MUCH better than the original is wanted, looks like you're gonna keep this narrative. Don't worry, it's not such a bad thing, you're a singles guy after all. Also, this is a good time to invest in business. Your health is getting better. Great time for meeting new people, and new relationship is coming up as well.

As you know, I am still hostless, but, you will be glad to hear that I've given up to the YSI Gods, and have finally used the damn thing. So, here's my first YSI attempt, this Sparks song is up for only 7 days, which is enough for you to download, play it a million times, download the album, play it a million times, and buy it. Because Sparks rocks. I played it and someone on the phone mistakenly thought it's Bach, as far as it is from that, it still may be a very elaborate Bach. Symphonic indie pop? Polyphonic Spree versus My Bloody Valentine? It's not that easy to define, but it's fresh in so many ways (this is from the 2006 release Hello Young Lovers):

Sparks - (Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country?

The hype is Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes' new LP now? Yawn. Don't be boring. The Monkeys are cool, and it's pretty hilarious to see the transition they've made from being a blogger-only knowledge band to a being asked by the Tower Records' clerk if she can recommend me something "special" band, which was pretty damn fast, and that's impressive. White Rose Movement have not been a big secret for a while now, people from the blogging scene and Tower Records shopsellers share their sympathy for this band. The guitars are the same the guitars, the drums are the same drums, the location stays the same, but the SONGS, oh, the songs! We're talking about Love Is a Number, which even Senior Ivan Smagghe AKA Black Strobe decided it's too indie to not be remixed, Girls in The Back, Alsation, and others which were floating around as demos are finally getting a proper release. Just like any band which stayed a rumour for a while, then became a soulseeker's secret love, a great live band, then got signed and finished their album in time to fit well in other interesting 2006 releases, this band suits the formula. I posted one of my favourite songs off the new album, Kick, hope you like it too:

White Rose Movement - Testcard Girl

It shouldn't have taken too long, but finally a truly respectable producer joined the blogging scene. At Midnight Mike's blog he will take you on a journey to his and his celebrity DJ friends' rare records collection. Very, very precious. Might be a bit more attractive than the Madonna blog, in my humble opinion. Midnight Mike is good friends with Zongamin (*cough* 2006!! *cough*), the Gomma guys, and he's also very talented. Highly recommended.

Two last things for this post: I was pretty busy this week and had no time to update, but I am still desperately looking for a home for my mp3s. If you can help somehow, please do. I have a lot of things to post (I will confess that I heard a tiny preview of the Hot Chip album and it's fabulous). Also, I want to thank Jonathan Galkin for being such a cool and great person. You rule. Little note-- there's no relation whatsoever between the Hot Chip preview hint and the Jonathan Galkin shout out. I just figured people might be connecting the dots or something, but, no, it was just a tiny insignificant preview.

Let's play pretend

2006-01-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

Imagine I posted a Kavinsky track. Imagine you downloaded it, listened to it, and really enjoyed it. Now, isn't this game nice?

No Hot Chip in this post :(

2006-01-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

Hi!

New post. Bad news. I don't have a server to host my files anymore. No, Hot Chip didn't file a complaint due to the posting of the Franz Ferdinand remix, the RIAA didn't raid me for being too cool either... the kind guys (thanks Achi!) who let me use their hosting service can't let me use it anymore, so I am kind of by myself now. I also don't wanna use something like YSI, rapidshare etc because I know how annoying they can get. I have lots of new shit to post, in the general spirit of new Hot Chip, Le Dust Sucker, Pets On Prozac, Uffie, Metronomy, New Young Pony Club, precious old disco tunes, and a whole variety of other lollipops. So, I come to you, the chosen ones, can you help somehow? Let me use some of your HD space and bandwidth? Heard of a free hosting service? Got some FTP I can upload the files to? An autograph of Alexis Taylor (guess what band)? If you can, drop me a mail or leave a comment.

Meanwhile, till you figure out what I should do, you can download (YSI, sorry) a MSTRKRFT set (on XFM). Old news and all (don't forget this is a pretty belated-post) but keep an eye on those boys. The tracklisting is:

DJ T - Funk On You
Audion - Just Fucking
Chris Lake - One Too Many
Magik Johnson - Feel Alright (Sold Groove Remix)
Christopher Just - I'm a Disco Dancer (John Tejada remix)
Tiga - Your Gonna Want Me
Tiny Sticks - Watching You
MSTRKRFT - Easy Love
H-Man - Rock This Place
Tiga - Move My Body

And a recent 2manydj's set. Also, Tyler at Smashed Robot has a nice radio show which is usually quite good, most of the time he blends funky european electro with old or retro No-Wave tracks, here's the link to lots of recently recorded radio shows. Really worth checking out.

Some "mpeg layer 3" files for you!

2006-01-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

Joakim - I Wish You Were Gone

This is the 'unknown' Joakim track from Erol's Essential Mix. Pause. I mean Erol Alkan, of course (the DJ guy fellow dude). It sounds like an hybrid of International Pony, those awfully familiar bleeps I can't recognize right now, but when I do I will correct this post, fantastic Talking Heads-esque guitars and a disco-punk mood that's not DFA-related for a change. Joakim, the Tigersushi producer/DJ, already visited us in Israel with Panico, the chilean band on his label that he produced, made 'Teenage Kiss', which is a stellar electro-punk track, some amazing remixes (Severed Heads is a prominent one) and now this one. It's definitely going to be of my favourite tracks this year, a real fresh beginning.

Hot Chip - No Fit State

OK!!! Yes!!!! I know what you're thinking. I won't even say anything. Just.. hm... whatanamazingsongiloveit. Aaaand... thisisfromthebarbarianephavefun (please imagine this is not made by Hot Chip, and this blog is actually very diverse, eclectic and truly special).

I also wanted to post Diplo's fun remix of Bloc Party's Helicopter, but then I saw it was posted on some.. more-anonymous-than-this blog, but it's cool actually. It's really worth checking out, he does something completely different than what Whitey did with the song-- instead of looping the main riff he re-recorded it giving it a hip-hop beat feel. You can check it out at Diplo's myspace page.

Good music lesson: the first time I realized how big geniuses Daft Punk are, is when I listened to the tracks they sampled for their songs. So, take Breakwater's Release The Beast (I found it on Freeform Five's astounding Misch Masch compilation), for example. This is Robot Rock. Listening to how they interpreted the song and imagined how it would work in other musical dimensions is pretty inspiring. From funk and disco to electro and french-house, this music is what originated most of the french house I guess. Other examples:

Edwin Birdsong - Cola Bottle Baby
George Duke - I Love You More

Over at House Is a Feeling (a truly awesome non-mp3 music blog) I found the coolest music summary of 2005. Apparently they met Elijah Wood somewhere, and he's (probably) known to know his way around in dance music, he talked about some important things like Lindstrom's I Feel Space, Kompakt records and other things of magnitude. Elijah's Year in Dance... >>

By the way, you really should download the DFA radio mixes, they're offered gratuitously for you to download, and they're quite cool. Oh, right, mark my words, this label "DFA" is worth keeping an eye on. I noticed that.. they, they know what they're doing, really. It means Death From Above, yes-- yes, like that cool Vice/679 band called DFA1979 but it's.. it's different. Differnet influences, errr, anyway, peace!

The song's so good, what an internal brain bleed!

2006-01-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick list of the favourite mixtapes I made in 2005:

For Elik--

M83 - Run Into Flowers
Ram Orion - Death (Live)
Mohammed Rafi - Jaan Pehechaan Ho
Jean-Murat Louis - Au Mont Sans Soucis
Elliott Smith - Needle in The Hay
Adam Green - Jessica
Architecture in Helsinki - Do The Whirlwind
Air - Alpha Beta Gaga
Sebastien Tellier - La Ritournelle
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
Can - Mushroom
Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter
Flaming Lips - Seven Nation Army (Harry Potter and George Bush Severed Head Mix)
LCD Soundsystem - Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up
The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
Hot Chip - Just Like We (Breakdown) (DFA Remix)

For Idan--

Home Video - That You Might
Can - Mushroom
The Unicorns - Tuff Ghost
Need New Body - Hot Shot
Andre3000 - Dracula's Wedding
Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
The Go! Team - The Power is On
Wire - Three Girl Rhumba
Whomadewho - Rose
M.I.A - Bucky Done Gone
The Rakes - Retreat
Arctic Monkeys - Bet You Look Good on The Dancefloor
Editors - Bullets
Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
Gorillaz - Dare (Soulwax Mix)

For Amit--

The Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres
White Rose Movement - Love is a Number
The Unicorns - Tuff Ghost
Mystery Jets - You Can't Fool Me Dennis
The Rapture - Alabama Sunshine
Gina X - No G.D.M
Need New Body - Hot Shot
Mocky - Mickey Mouse Muthafuckers
Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
The Go! Team - The Power is On
Jona Lewie - (You'll Always Fnd me In The Kitchen) at Parties
Wire - Three Girl Rhumba
Whomadewho - Rose
Lo-Fi-Fnk - Change Channel
Lindstrom - I Feel Space
M.I.A - Bucky Done Gone
Out Hud - It's For You

For Omer--

International Pony - Our House (A1)
Lindstrom - I Feel Space (M.A.N.D.Y Remix)
The Go! Team - Bottlerocket
The Rakes - Retreat
Superpitcher - Tell Me About It
Baxendale - I Built This City (Justus Kohncke Mix)
Justus Kohncke - Timecode (Edit)
Lipps, Inc - How Long
LCD Soundsystem - Disco Infiltrator (FK Vocal)
The Rapture - Killing (live)
Putsch '79 - Asian Girls
The Juan Maclean - Tito's Way
Isolee - Pictureloved
Zongamin - Bongo Song
Bloc Party - She's Hearing Voices
Jean-Louis Murat - Au Mont Sans Soucis

For Michal--

Interpol - Evil
Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline
Ram Orion - Death
Mystery Jets - You Can't Fool Me Dennis
Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)
Gorillaz - El Manana
Simian - Never Be Alone
Eliott Smith - Needle in The Hay
Dafna & The Cookies - Potential Energy
Sebastien Tellier - La Ritournelle
Architecture in Helsinki - Do The Whirlwind
Hot Chip - The Warning
The George Baker Selection - Little Green Bag
Jean-Louis Murat - Au Mont Sans Soucis

--

Retrospectively, the mixtape I feel best about is the one I made for my 17 y/o brother Omer, just a couple of great dance/indie tracks I thought he'll really like, and he did. He's mostly into disco but can't be indifferent to Bloc Party's bass riffs for example. Also, you can see some songs that influenced me a bit more than others, and I couldn't stop myself from including them in almost every mixtape (ones that are either so utterly great that I sincerely don't think anyone cannot like, or just had to be there), like Jean-Louis Murat's Au Mont Sans Soucis, which I found on Vitalic's cute Colette vol. 7, the Mystery Jets' You Can't Fool Me Dennis (band of 2006), M.I.A, Whomadewho, Hot Chip, LCD, and of course Architecutre in Helsinki. if I had to conduct one myself right now, I'd definitely throw Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Scout Niblett and things of that nature in it.

I know I've been referring to the Gomma Gang/Trevor Jackson clan way too much on this blog, and hopefully I'll move to other areas of music soon, but I have to post this track by Headman, from his forthcoming 2006 release On, the song's called "So Now!", I already have it on vinyl and it has appeared before the album, but it definitely makes the all time favourties list. A really gorgeous composition of cowbells, bass guitars, freedom drums and an overall feel of something James Murphy would have loved to steal. I have a strong feeling that Headman replicated stuff from Gang of Four's BRILLIANT It's Her Factory , or atleast only it's start. I don't really know though, if you can confirm this please do. On, the album itself, to be released on Gomma Records, is actually, hmm, OK. It has its' real Headman moments, but generally the vocals kind of take some of the songs' charm & mysterious Swiss magic. There was a soulseek leak of Doop, which looks like the rough instrumentals of this release, and is actually better than this. It has 'Birth, School, Work, Death', which was a major club hit and a great track indeed, but it doesn't appear on the new release. Anyway, it's all pretty confusing and scattered all over the place... So, if Headman's planning to release Doop, I'll be really glad. Enjoy:

Headman - So Now!

(by the way, er, hi! do your eyes hurt? maybe you're not supposed to read this! anyway, I can't really admit that I have this track, because I'll get my ass sued by Sony, but I, hm, somehow, heard a couple of notes from the failed collaboration between DFA and Britney Spears [maybe it wasn't a smart idea to write those two names close like that, the Sony google cops will bust me!], and it's oh-my-god-holy-cowbell the best shit in the world)

Everyone loves a bit of head, man

2005-12-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

I'm trying as much as I can not to to turn this blog into a Hot Chip fansite, but I can't stop myself from posting more and more Hot Chip related stuff. I was pretty tensed up on Friday, because generally things in my life don't look like I want them to. My birthday gathering got postponed and then pretty much ruined, but eventually it's all fine. Just when my thoughts were all messed up in my head, I put on the Barbarian EP (new Hot Chip release) and magically forgot about everything as soon as Alexis' delicate voice was heard. Before Hot Chip met DFA, they had a kinda glitchy atmosphere to their songs. This one is from their debut Coming On Strong LP-- my favourite song off it:

Hot Chip - You Ride, We Ride, In My Ride

Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out has been remixed and re-edited too many times, but this rendition is the one that you've truly never heard before. This is an unreleased Hot Chip remix that hasn't appeared anywhere before. They basically contributed their slapcore attitude to the song, re-played it with their funky electronica instruments. I love it:

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (Hot Chip Remix)

A bit before I Feel Space, Lindstrom was making music too. This track is not the neo-italo epic that IFS is, but it shows the Lindstrom/Prins Thomas hype is completely justified-- Electro beats with those Gomma synths on top make a great dance track, it is taken from Headman's Dance Modern *excellent* compilation, it's mash-upped with the acapella of Rockers Revenge classic disco tune Walking On Sunshine, which adds some adequate vocals in the mix. Check out the entire mix, it's also much better than sets Headman has done live and it has some true gems:

Lindstrom - Fast & Delirious (Spencer Filipsson Edit) / Rockers Revenge - Walking On Shine (Acapella)

Click here for Gomma's site with various mixes to download.
And here for Dance Modern on discogs.

Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal

2005-12-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Simian Mobile Disco - Clik

Simian Mobile Disco are cool. They're James Ford & James Shaw, two ex-Simian dudes who've been remixing and making some seriously exciting music lately. Their second mixtape is really worth checking out. Clik appeared a few weeks ago on Erol Alkan's ingenious Essential Mix, and it really demonstrates SMD's skill. I have yet to come up with a good way to depict them except
'a cool version of The Chemical Brothers'.

Cut Copy - Future (!!! Remix)

If Cut Copy are Chromeo's cousins, and !!!/Out Hud are clones-- this team up should be pretty interesting. Cut Copy released a so-so album this year, but some tracks ("Time Stands Still", "Going Nowhere"), including this one, are just great. Future gets the !!! treatment, which gives the electo-funkers that disco-punk twist they needed (click here to download a nice mixtape Cut Copy made for BBC).

Zea - Clocks (Coldplay cover)

This is a track I kinda have by accident. I know nothing of this Zea band, except that they're one of the better local bands they have there, in Amsterdam (Others being David Gilmour Girls and Melomanics, of course). They kind of remind of Clor, and that's a compliment. This is sorta like a semi-electo cover, which ends in a brutal 90's Hi-NRG/whatever fashion. It's pretty nice. Oh and, I seem to possess two of their albums, I dunno why-- I can upload more of this stuff if you like it.

Lo-Fi-Fnk - Change Channel (Soul Supreme Mix)

Lo-Fi-Fnk are one of my favourite new bands. I found out about them through Kitsune Maison, Kitsune's excellent compilation. Their Change Channel was there, then I stumbled upon And The JFG EP, the release they have on Moshi Moshi, which sounds like a Moshi Moshi release - their avantgarde funk sound-- they even have a name for it "slapcore". Anyway, my brother says the original is better because this lacks the bass, I kinda agree with him but I like them both.

Before I go, one last thing - James from Headphone Sex posted Naum Gabo's remix of Hot Chip's Over and Over. It's fantastic.