Read & Listen

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Last Step - 1961
[Planet Mu, 2008]

Last Step is a side project of Venetian Snares, a Canadian Aaron Funk. He first appeared under this alias on Planet Mu with a 12’’ You’re A Nice Girl, in 2007 the first LP, Last Step, came out, which makes 1961 his second album.

The roots of this music can be traced in Squarepusher, Luke Vibert, and, of course, Aphex Twin. IDM connection feels almost physically. Electronic fractures, a little bit of funk in the very beginning, on My Home Recordings, massive use of synthesizers from the 80s… The album was recorded, by the way, with good old Roland 303 and 707.

This layer of music, it seems, lives its own life, every time being somewhere out of all the trends, zeitgeist, developing on its own, without mutations, but synthesizing. Sapience inorganic forms, within which compound chemical and physical reactions take place. Somewhere in the interiors of this complicated program appear somewhat “human” roots - a hint of italo-disco here, synthesized vocals there, ambient landscapes all over… but the whole thing is densely varnished with computers, so you can’t really suspect biological life there. Still, while you have Last Step percolating in your ears, you can distinctly see your own humanoid essence. I’m Jack’s CPU.

Read & Listen:
Last Step Myspace
All tracks samples on Planet Mu

Lemonade - Lemonade
[True Panther, 2008]

Maybe because of Bubblegum Lemonade, or maybe because of the drink name itself, but you really expect Lemonade to be all twee-pop and sweet. What you get though is a box full of aggressive and jumpy post-punk. The main thing about this debut of San Francisco/Brooklyn trio is danceability. Six tracks only, but starting with the opener, Big Weekend, you get the rhythms of fun as it should be. This is definitely a crazy-party music: Chinese New Year fireworks of Madison Square Garden and the likes… Callan Clendenin’s vocals sound at times a bit sickly and random, like on the industrial rhythms of Unreal, or, at most times, just pure careless and noisy. And the drummer Alex Pasternak must be having fun all the time - banging on everything within his reach.

All in all, Lemonade is noisy, loud and pushy. And at the same time, pretty digestible. Arabic motives (world music is everywhere these days) on Nasifon, a simple 4/4 beat on Blissout - whatever you pick, there’s an internally growing desire to dance. Well, that’s exactly what this music is for.

Read & Listen:
Lemonade Myspace

Tim Ten Yen - Everything Beautiful Reminds Me Of You
[Pointy, 2008]

Should this album hit me sooner, Everything Beautiful Reminds Me Of You would be on my top 2008 list, or at least would get an honorable notice. But I only got it in February, and, I should say, it really brightens my days and recharges inner batteries - so perfect timing.

Tim Ten Yen is a “singing salaryman.” A typical British, white collar, taking the same car every day to the same office, and entertaining himself, and us, with “karaoke pop” music. Which he describes on his Myspace as “David Lee Roth and Billy Joel being chased down a frozen river by a tiger.” (If you’re interested, take a look at the full story.) There are guitar riffs (not too many, luckily), there are tons of upbeat melodies, and still you wouldn’t really think of David Lee Roth or Billy Joel listening to the album.

Starting with Girl Number One, and ending with Your Love (both songs are super-great), all 11 tracks of the album make you believe in a brighter side of life, despite Mondays or weather reports… A definite milestone on the album is The Bear And The Fox. Sometimes Tim Ten Yen gets twee-poppy, and in general, he seems to combine everything British, packed in humorous videos. Watch for yourselves. (Oh, and good vocals, too.)

Girl Number One

Your Love

Read & Listen:
Tim Ten Yen website
Myspace

Zomby - Where Were U In ‘92?
[Werk Discs, 2008]

It’s sometimes great to take a look into the past. 15-20 years. Where Were U In 92 is a phrase taken from M.I.A’s XR2, became the basis for a 40-minute mix by Zomby. He had a “breakthrough” single “Mu5h/Spliff Dub (Rustie Remix)” in 2008, and this new work of his takes us back right in the beginning of the 90s, where there was jungle, drum’n’bass, lots of rhythms, hardcore dance and no compromise. For those who for some reason spent 92 on Mars, it’s a great opportunity to catch up, and for the rest - to dive into nostalgia.

(Well, if you think, I was 10 in 92, and my music preferences lied more around R.E.M’s “Losing My Religion” than this type of rave, that came later. But still, sooner or later, I guess my generation went through this type of music. At least, it should have.)

Let me leave all the detailed description of the mix behind, it’s not so important for me, to be honest. What matters is turning the mix on in iPod on a way to the gym, or at home, at night - and letting the nightclubbing mood take you in, when you’re under 20, not knowing what’s going on around you, but everything is crazy and fun. This music is exactly for these times.

Read & Listen:
Zomby Myspace

Metro Area - Fabric 43
[Fabric, 2008]

The disco experience is all about the claps. And as a matter of fact, we’re about to give you your own disco experience…

Metro Area’s discography currently includes only one LP (2002), and now around 10 EPs, but it doesn’t make their contribution to music less valuable. Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani are the best at making atmospheric dance music with a light club mood (which is also the basic style of Geist’s record label, Environ). And while the two of them are working on a new album, tentatively due in 2009, Metro Area present us with Fabric 43, an hour-long mixtape of smoothed out rhytms.

The whole mix is compiled of old 80s disco beats. Nothing really outstanding, nothing that you’ve heard from every window and every car. After their own introduction of the mix on Babla’s Disco Sensation “Ghar Aya Mera Pardesi,” one melody flows into another, one mood changes by another. There aren’t many vocal tracks. There are Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” (by Play by Numbers), Five Special’s “Why Leave Us Alone”, an instrumental version of Skratch’s “You Should Have Known Better” - with only the main vocal sample left, dub version of Gary’s Gang’s “Makin’ Music”… The final one is interestin - it’s Devo’s “Freedom of Choice”, and the rhythm is getting visibly faster toward it. Almost the whole tracklist is dub and instrumental versions. No sharp edges here, in whole, the mixtape can be viewed as a general cultural experience of Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani’s music. Organic cream of the 80s, whipped up with a professional mixer. Could we offer you a dessert, sir? Party mix never gets better than this.

Read & Listen:
Metro Area Myspace
Interview about Fabric 43
Multiple songs at Fabric website

Sin Fang Bous - Clangour
[Morr Music, 2008]

Sindri Mar Sigfusson is a guy from Iceland who has been known as Seabear. Now he’s wearing a new costume, named Sin Fang Bous. His MySpace page says “born to be mild, baby.” And it’s really a very mild transition from a typically Morr tenderness of Seabear - to somewhat Animal-Collective-like experiments with folk/meta-folk space. There’s no wilderness that’s typical for these guys, though. Sin Fang Bous provides you with a fresh broth of hypnotic herbs, a true delight.

If somewhere inside the album you find yourself in the pastures of heaven, don’t be surprised, various states of euphoria are to be expected. The opening track, and one of the brightest stars of the album, is called Advent in Ives Garden. Here the doors to this jungle of mellow sounds is opened. Soft vocals disappearing inside the guitars, percussion, and various electronic clicks. Another bright moment on the album is Catch The Light, where you can almost catch rays of sunlight between guitar strings, keyboard chords and indefinitely folk-like tunes. It is a folk album, though not an easily categorized one. Experiments with the starting point in folk, I’d say. I’ll leave the rest of the album (the total of 12 tracks) to your listening. A really nice one.

Advent in Ives Garden

Read & Listen:
Sin Fang Bous on Myspace
Seabear on Myspace
Advent in the Ives Garden mp3
Catch the Light

Flying Lotus - 2×3 EP
[Warp, 2008]

The second of the three EPs from Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. After a wonderful Los Angeles album it seems, there’s nothing more to write about, it’s been all said. But the 9-track EP does deserve a couple of words (that again fail me).

It’s a remix album… that is, EP - but still sounds like a whole album. These music bullets shot right at your ears, have been prepared together with Mike Slott, Nosaj Thing, Ras G, Samiyam, Exile, Monopoly, and more. Roberta Flack in Mike Slott’s version sounds like a miracle, airy and uplifting. In general, 2×3 EP brings new light to the tracks you know: with Darth Vader’s breathing, with clicks and clacks of heavy artillery, all kinds of metallic toys banging, with streams of air through architectural structures… The music that builds new and new layers of unique atmosphere around you.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace

Of Montreal - Cause We Were Virgins to Your Kisses [7'' + DVD]
[Heartfast, 2008]

Of Montreal, of Athens, Georgia, released in the end of 2008 a picture disc plus DVD and 7” titled “Cause We Were Virgins to Your Kisses.” I’m thinking of buying, more as a toy/artefact than music. The DVD includes footage from their US tour of 2007 - live footage, backstage, etc. The first track on the vinyl is of Montreal’s cover version of bollywood classic “Jimmy” by M.I.A (from her Kala album), it’s a slower mellow version with half-singing/half-whispering and a relaxed hook. Kevin Barnes commented saying that he loved the song so much, and he’d been thinking of his interpretation for a while. The second track is called “Middle Class Ghetto,” and it’s previously unreleased exclusive. A bit in the vein of Broken Social Scene, less noisy probably, the song is only a minute and 11 seconds in length, making the whole 7” length less than five minutes. But it can be listened on repeat far, far longer, I checked.

Read & Listen:
of Montreal Myspace
of Montreal - Jimmy mp3 (from Pitchforkmedia)
Buy at Darla

Zooey Deschanel, a wonderful actress and singer (of She & Him) and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie are engaged!

Great indie couple!
(Volk also mentions this.)

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