Drive week continues with Desire's "Don't Call"

If you go to the soundcloud page for this song you will see it has been played 97 times this week. I am responsible for at least a third of that action.



I think the reason I'm really digging this stuff right now is that if fall was a time of night it would be post 2:00 am when the bars are closed and your kind of riding high but you know the fun is almost over but you don't want to stop drinking so you go to your friends house and continue on there. Some people are in the living room still grasping on to the last few minuets to dance while the rest of you are standing in the kitchen drinking carry out beers. This is the song that is playing when you are drinking the shitty carry our beers in the kitchen. This isn't the midnight glam of a few hours before but the early morning disco to make you see that at some point all this is coming to an end and you are most likely going to wake up hungover but, fuck it, that is part of the fun.

Apparently, the person I need to thank for this is Johnny Jewel, the mastermind behind this group and several other bands on Italians Do It Better. The dude knows how to write a pop song and he knows his way around some pop hooks. This track might not share the high velocity nature of some other disco beats but that doesn't make it any less cold, sexy, and devastating.

I want to live in Desire's world and I want to live in it now.

Can the best album in the last month be the first five tracks of a soundtrack?

Because I think that is what is happening here with the soundtrack to the film Drive. The first five songs are stunning, brilliant, haunting, and beautiful. All just rapped up into one gorgeous five song segment. Everyone one of these songs make me want to wear a satin jacket with a scorpion embroidered on the back of it.



All four of the first five tracks are straight from artists associated with the Italians Do It Better label which is responsible for one of the best albums in the last decade: After Dark. A compilation of, at the time, unknown American artists taking Italian disco, pulling the rug from out underneath it to make a whole new type of creepy, sexy, disco. If the Drive soundtrack proves only one thing, it is that Italians Do It Better clearly have their eye on the prize - that being making the darkest, sexiest, ridiculously addictive disco.



I don't even know if I can call this disco, this might be something entirely different. For sure, "A Real Hero" is probably not a disco track. I don't think it is a dance track of any sort, maybe an electronic song? Clearly, what makes it is the sultry, whisper-y pipes of Electric Youth. Don't get me wrong, the music with its perfectly placed beat is awesome and super dystopian sounding but how can you ignore that voice. It's amazing. I've listened to it over and over and I have no idea what she is signing about I just he sounds that don't make and sense to my ears. There is just something about her voice where she could be singing almost anything and I would want to hear it.

It's too much to handle. Tomorrow we discuss the Chromatic's "Tick of the Clock" and why I can't stop listening to it.

Tuesday dub-step

Holy crap I'm tired. In the last three hours I have studied microeconomics, stats, public policy theory and locked myself out of my house for an hour. It's been a busy evening.

 Sully - I Know by cooldang

I swear to god when I get more time we will go into this guy in more depth. This Sully character's new album Carriers is pretty amazing. Not too heavy on the dub-step, no too heavy on the weird bass that I'm starting to hate, and just the right amount of suspense. If it is anything it is surely original.

Now, I think I'm going to eat some Chinese food.

Disco mix for the start of your work week

Torrential down pours and fall sunsets. That is what we got today in central Ohio. All sorts of horrible rain in the morning and then a pleasant evening. Kind of strange. Sort of like the world took pity on us for having pissed on us all day and awarded us a sunset. Or, it is just a pathetic attempt at lulling us into a state where we do not realize that winter is right around the corner. As you can see, I may have some trust issues.

 Eddie C - TEP Guest Mix by TEP Recordings

I found something that made getting out of bed this morning worth it. An hour long mix done by Eddy C that is all Eddy C material. God. Damn. Work was parable today because of this.

It is labeled as a deephouse/nu-disco mix, for some reason they don't have an option to label it "life affirming". I think that should be an option.

My love for Eddy C runs deep and true. This mix only strengthens those bonds of love.

The Field - Then It's White, the cure to your hangover

Yep, I know, I screwed up. I left you guys hanging without anything posted for two whole days. But, It's sunny, warm(-ish), and I got something for your hangover. You can thank me later.



Mellooooow as fucccckkkkk.

The start of this song feels like a chopped and screwed remix to me. This is The Field at his mellowest it seems. In albums past, The Field seemed to be making a name for himself by taking vocal samples and manipulating them into shapes and textures unlike anyone else. Those ghostly vocals are still on this album, but sometimes they are less vocal samples that are meant to be heard as vocal pieces and more like instruments. Instruments in the sense that the vocal samples are being used just like other sounds and instruments, mostly in a looping format.

A little piano piece looped over an over again, is the background for some mellow drum loops put just far enough in the back to not overwhelm the feeling of the track. For as mellow as this tune is though, there is a clear sense of anticipation and movement. It starts slowly with mostly just the keys and a small drum sample and it builds with extra layers of ghostly vocals, electronic loops, more drums, until it ends with pretty much just a vocal sample repeating and some bells. Word on the street is that The Field is incorporating more and more live musicians into his albums and live show and I think you can really hear it on this track. Between the piano piece, the drum samples, and the xylophone that comes in at the end, they all have this quality to them that I would guess comes from them being played live. It's a interesting idea of combining electronic instrument and real instruments together to create what is in essence an minimal techno song.

Not a bad way to deal with your Sunday morning hangover. Turn it up loud and get some caffeine in you. You'll feel better, I promise.

Alan Braxe is some sort of witch

I guess we have been sort of in a nostalgic mood recently. If you can count being sucked into mid 2000's house music nostalgic. I'm just going to go ahead and say, yes, we are being nostalgic and it's fucking awesome.



Before the days of witch house, post dub-step, hazy-core, and chill-wave there was a man in France making dance music named Alan Braxe. Standing six feet, four inches tall, with a face that was easy on the eyes, and dressed to the nines, Alan Braxe stalked the streets of Paris at night haunted by the gifts that God had given him. Underneath his dashing looks and come hither stare was a man being crushed by what he knew and could never un-know.

While the rest of the world in 2005 was knee deep in cheap credit and multiple homes, Alan Braxe was a man who had been given an unsolicited gift. His gift - the ability to make devastating house songs that destroyed space and time and made reality questionable.

The stories are more haunting than anything. When people talk about them you can see a certain haze come over them, they have tendency to stare off into space, their foreheads will start to perspire a little, and they will have a hard time speaking. Legend has it one hot summer night, in one of those clubs in Paris that are underground in a 800 year-old catacomb that you can only get into if you know someone Alan Braxe dropped this song for the first time. Depending on who you talk to details may differ, but everyone will agree - it felt like space and time ceased to exist. People who were there described have feelings of euphoria followed by feeling like their bodies didn't exist anymore. They will swear that people on the dance floor just starting flowing into one another like when water pellets run into other water pellets they make a bigger water pellet. They will describe that for those four minutes they knew for a fact that reality was just a figment of our imaginations' and that nothing really existed and that life as we knew it was a lie.

After that night Alan Braxe was never the same. You can't un-see the things I have seen, he would tell people. He grew pale, he stopped eating, he stopped shaving, and he swore he would never play the song again in public. To this day, if you ask him about it he won't acknowledge the question. The closest he has ever come to talking about it was in an interview he did for an quasi-anarchy zine in Paris soon after reports started surfacing of the event.

"One man shouldn't have this much power - the power to show people the true nature of the world, the true nature of the universe. Space, time, and reality are walls that our minds use to make sense of the world, but now, I believe they are only that - walls. Walls that are meant to be broken through."

Everything is going to be fine - there is a new Guided by Voices on its way - we are going to be OK

I don't care that it rained all day.

I don't care that I locked my self out of my apartment and had to climb in through the window to get in.

I don't care that I had to sit through three hours of worthless instruction today in class.

Guided by Voices is back together and they are putting out a new album. Just by typing that on the screen some how it thaws this stone cold soul of mine. It means all things are possible - even when you think something you love will never return. Hold on to hope, because it might just come back.

This gets a big old fuck and yea.

















Tower to the mother fucking skies!

Ice. Cold. Beats.

We have to put up a fight. We can't just let fall steamroll into town without putting up a fight. It is our patriotic duty. If we can't even do that then the terrorists have truly won.



Fuck. And. Yes. Some clowns over at Pitchfork said this was a one hit wonder. Yes, that would be true if you only ever listened to this song and never listened to any of their other stuff but I would be hard pressed to call the The MFA a one hit wonder. Also, I think this is all more Superpitcher's doing than anything so lets just not throw the baby out with the bath water.

German? Check

Minimalistic? Check

Kompakt related? Check

I don't really see how we can go wrong here. Yea, it might be a little cold, but a type of cold where you have been in a super hot bar and you go outside and it's a little chilly and it just feels right.

I'm thinking like ice cubes on your skin - but not for some random reason but because someone is putting them there for a purpose. And the skin under the ice cubes burn, just a little bit, and you want to take it off but the ice is starting to melt and water is cooling the burn and your skin. And you can feel the water sort of run down your skin and leave a path of wetness behind it where it has cooled different hairs on your body. Yea, this track sounds something like that.

Jason Molina once tried moving a mountain by singing to it

Its about 55 degrees outside, gray, and it's been raining all day. Actually, raining is too kind of a description; imagine someone spitting in your face and multiple that by one million. That should give you a general idea of what is going on outside today.



And, I get it world, its fall. We have clearly kissed whatever was left of summer goodbye and have moved headlong into fall. I get it, I can only live in a state of denial for so long. Coming to terms with this usually causes me to go into a contemplative state were I wonder whether it is too late to simply move to Vegas and become a professional gambler. Usually that's how it works. Today it turned into 'lets just listen to some Songs: Ohia, pretend to do work, and call it a day'. There is just something about these tracks from Magnolia Electric Co. The lyrics are the words of a man that seems to know his way around pain or loss or loneliness or some combination of all three. But what gets me every time is that guitar work at the very beginning of the song. I swear to god, rage could take over every inch of my body, and you could play this song and I'm sure those opening guitar notes would just make me melt. Every time. I just want to sit down with a bottle, drink and smoke cigarettes.

There is a man lost in these lyrics and he is slowly coming to grips with what is left around him. As much as I love the music the lyrics are what really seal the deal for me. Jason Molina's gravely half singing/half mumbling style might sound like gravel sometimes but it works, and it works perfectly. He is a man who has some shit and he is singing about a man who has seen some shit.

Sometimes musicians deliver the truth by thrashing around with their guitar and their drums. And some deliver it with an acoustic guitar, a cigarette, and a gravely voice.

Dub-a-Dub

Fuuuuuuuuck, its been so busy this week. I'm so sorry people. I've been a bad friend. But I'm back. Let's get to it.

Co La, "Egyptian Peaches" by The FADER

You know why this song is awesome? Because it is a summer jam that is why. A little dub, a little electronic, a nice little sunshine-y synth thing going on. This is awesome. Thank god, because I'm sitting in my room wearing a cardigan and I'm fucking pissed. It is the 16th of September, and can it be true that the sun has already forsaken us? Fucking the sun. I never trusted it.

Seriously though, this is some great stuff. I'm a huge dub fan and I'm totally digging the dub bassline and the colorful synths. Who the hell knows what the vocal sample is saying but it works perfectly. I think I have listened to this song a good 20 times today.

I have no idea who this Co La character is, but he seems to be onto something and I suggest he keeps it up. Also, more artists need to look into the dance-dub combo. If I knew anything about making music I would do it. This is free advice people, do with it what you will.

Burned Out

Alex Willner stands before an empty canvas in his studio.  Over in the corner paint cans are stacked neatly on top of each other and  empty jelly jars stand next to the canvass filled with water and used paint brushes. The water in the jam jar is now a graying brown due to the mixture of all the colors from the brushes.

Alex is wearing a red striped shirt that makes him sort of look like a pirate. He has yellows, and streaks of green on his pants and his shirt. Somehow he's managed to get a bit of red on his face. His thinning head of red hair is swept to one side and he his thinking out loud to himself while smoking.

"Painting is about the spaces between the lines. The lines the painter makes across the canvass are equally as important as the lines that the painter implies. A master painter will just as likely create a sense of space by drawing a line as he will by omitting a line. The true artist will create a sense of space and emotion out of nothing. Out of lines and movements the viewer never thought possible, the artist will create a sense of emotion."

"Music should be the same way. I will create sounds from electronic instruments and real instruments and I will build them on top of each other till the listener won't be able to tell the difference. My colors, will be sounds. The reds will be the compressed sounds, the loops will be the long flowing blue lines that ebb in distance and thickness. My greens and purples will be the foundation of my painting, the bass of my song."

"Before a painting is a painting it is bunch of paint sitting in cans. Before my songs exist they are sounds that exist else where. In my hands I give them the sense of space, timing, meaning that they were suppose to have."

A dash of disco

I really should be doing something else right now, but I'm not. Anyone got any suggestions? I'm all ears, really.



I've started running recently. I never ran as a form of exercise before. In fact, I was one of those people who hated running. I would do everything in my power to not have to run. So, now that I am running I got a good half hour of time where I need to be listening to something that is a upbeat. Which means I have been listening to a ton of Beats in Space episodes. I can't begin to recommend this show enough. It not just good to have on while doing something as brainless as running but it is something you can enjoy when you are just, say, typing block posts on a Sunday night.

I found this track to be quit excellent. It was on the Meat Disco mix. (Meat Disco is strong front runner for name of the year, FYI)  I don't know how great of a name Bassfort is, kind of running techno-y, but they know how to make a mean track. This is practically two songs in one. The first half being the calmer more mellower of the two. While the second half is all about the crisp clean piano line that is sitting right there on top of a strong 4/4 beat. The piano part adds just the right amount of disco-ness on what would otherwise be a pretty standard house track. Which is maybe something we should all take away from this track - when you feel like your life is in a rut, maybe try spicing it up with just a little bit of disco. It can't do you no harm.

One Divine Hammer

So, does anyone read music blogs on a Saturday night? Probably not, but that doesn't mean I can still go wild over some bitching Breeders tunes.

I don't know how to talk about this still, but I'm strongly anti-90's nostalgia. Than again I'm mostly anti-nostalgia in all of its forms. Any think that is backwards looking and overly appreciative of thinks simply because they happened in a certain time period I don't trust.



A couple of quick thoughts, 1) there is a very poorly edited flying nun in this video that I can't really explain and 2) I think the credits say that one of the directors of the video was Spike Jones. Which if point 2 is true, that makes point number one all the more confusing

I had a girlfriend in college include this song on a mix-tape she made me and I feel in love immediately. Sooooooo poppy. It's a cornucopia of poppy-ness. I can't be bothered with your Lady Gaga or whatever marginally talented pop sensation you listen to. In fact, I think my new goal in life is to make sure that lady Gaga listens to this entire album. Hopefully she will see the error in her ways and see that it isn't to late to start a rock band. I want Lady Gaga to break down in tears and realize she is living a lie after the record ends for the first time. I want her to sob and curl up into a ball knowing she has become the product that can be easily packaged and consumed by millions that she was fighting against. But, I want her to know there is a way out. There is a hope. That hope rests upon her starting a all female rag-tag crew to put together an album of 90-ish pop-rock.



Also, one of the greatest Ohio bands, right? Shit, I can think of like only four good Ohio bands ever: GBV, The Breeders, Devo, and the Ohio Players. That's it. I literally can't think of another band.

When Kim Deal sings "I know you are a cannon ball", I believe that I am.

Witch house? Witch house.

Oh my god, a blog post with a theme. I wrote this post backwards, so I started with the last video and worked my way up. Only then did I realize, all of these songs are sort of connected. In the way that haunted, melting, slowed down rap beats can be connected. I think it is the time of year. I think because summer is fading into fall I'm sub-consciously into these tracks that sound like what rainbow sherbet looks like at the bottom of a bowl. It's all melted, and all the colors are just oozing into each other making some sort of gooey  sticky, syrup. These neon colors melting into each other to create other, darker, more menacing, but just as tasty colors.  Good shit really.



Holy shit, I spent all day at working listening to Holy Other, creeping myself out. Here is my disclaimer, don't let this remix fool you - this shit is spooky. But a good type of spooky. We will talk about Holy Other another time because right now we just need to focus on this remix. I thought this remix was the shit and then I went and listened to the original and no one should listen to that song and think, "you know what the world needs, a sort of dance remix of it". Nope. No one should do that. Enter, Blood Diamonds though and apparently he doesn't give a shit. He does a brilliant job of using the haunted, sucked-out vocals and building a fantastic single around them. I think that is pretty fucking impressive.



It has been way too long since we have had any Clams Casino tracks on here. This isn't even a new one, it is some remix but it is still dope. Hat Tip to the new(?) Keep on Repeat tumblr which is where I found this slowed down beauty.

Also, fucking samurai movies, am I right? He fucking cuts the dude's head in half from top to bottom and, because that isn't enough, they keep the camera on it for a good 20 seconds. Well done Fvck Swag and well done samurai movie.



Is there a bad Aaliyah vocal track? I'm on the side that there isn't. Take the worst Aaliyah track and I'm sure you are still going to be able to do something with it. With that said, don't let it take away from the production in this song. Not too fast, not too slow, I think they call this a groove. Sprinkle in some swooshes, electronic bloops and beeps, and you got yourself a 100% hit.

I feel like how this guy looks

Is it one-oh-trix point never? What about othe-nix point never? Or, o-po-trix point never?

I don't know, but this is new, from his forthcoming album, Creeping the shit out of you.

No, not really, I lied. It's called Replica.


Either way, I do feel like how that guy looks.

The Old Guard

Look at that thing! Jesus Christ, what is going on here with this demonic piece of art work. Whoever made this should be given a good talking to. This is offensive to my christian values.

Juk Juk - Winter Turn Spring (TEXT012) by Four Tet

This is how Fact Magazine described this tune:

Four Tet's Text label welcomes newcomer Juk Juk, whose debut single is cherry-blossoming 2-step with a cold sleight of hand indebted to Lawrence. Lush as you like, and seriously mesmerising. 

Fucking 'cherry-blossoming'. Really? God damn it, I'm never going to make it in this racket.

Anyone want to tell me what that means? British people are so much better at explaining things than we are. I've been watching a lot of soccer and soccer commentators commonly use phrases like exquisite, stunningly beautiful, marvelous, to describe fucking cross passes in the box that miss everyone and roll out of bounds. What are you suppose to do when you encounter something that is stunningly beautiful? Do their heads explode from the beauty of something that is deserving of such high praise? Are minds just liquefied at even the mere thought of something being truly marvelous?

He is always around, Four Tet, he is the old guard almost. He isn't even that old but he is consistent. And in this game that means a lot. For example, he had a good decade. A good, fucking, decade. You can't say that for almost anyone else in electronic/progressive dance/indie rock/indie dance/what ever genre you want to hold up. Few artists have good back-to-back albums, let alone a good decade.

Of course, his sound has changed over the years, but there is something that just so Four Tet about all of his tracks. You know it from the mother-fucking cherry blossoming on all his tunes.

You see what I did there?

The Field, winter, and bad Greek analogies

Don't tell anyone at my job but I'm one of the only people in yet and I forgot to write a post last night so I'm doing it now.

What sucks more, going in on Monday or going in on the Tuesday after labor day? I would rather go in to work on 100 Mondays than have to go in to work the Tuesday after labor day weekend. God damn it, when do I get to move somewhere warm and where I don't have to worry about it being the Tuesday after Labor Day and it starting to get cold.

Also, don't tell me that I have like fall because it is something to look forward to. In theory, yes, fall would be an enjoyable season. I like football, sweaters, leaves changing colors, etc. What I don't like is everything that comes after fall. That is bullshit and that is what ruins fall for me. I don't have much ability to just enjoy the moment. I don't see how anyone can when it comes to fall and when you know the light at the end of tunnel is just the freight train of winter coming to plow you over.

I think I have some seasonal problems I need to get through. Fuck, this wasn't go to be about my season problems it was going to be about what we all have something to look forward to......a new The Field album. Fuck. And. Yes. These two gems are off his upcoming album "Looping State of Mind"





These songs are blankets made of ice cold Germanic techno beats designed specifically to keep me warm against the horrors of winter in Columbus, Ohio. I like to think that The Field lives in the ice cave from the Superman movies where he has his lair were everything is made out of ice and snow. And he doesn't ever smile, he just sits in his ice throne in front of a stack of electronic equipment generating looping techno beats that are used by humans to battle all forms of injustice, like the fucking cold and gray that will soon envelop this entire land for at least six months.

I want to hang out with The Field and make him smile. I want him to know that I, for one, appreciate what he is doing, and that he can't stop. He is the modern day Hercules - he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and languishes under the knowledge that his cold hard beats are keeping the world on its axis.

You can see that I'm not handling this change of seasons really well.

Where have you been my entire life?

Holy crap, is this what 1990's techno was like?

So, this is what 1995 London sounded like? My god, why did anyone even bother listening to Oasis when you had this right in your own backyard. I'm glad to see the generation before me was just as good at ignoring truly good music and opting for the easy, non-confrontational bands. It is a trait my generation carries on, seemingly with pride.

I found this gem while listening to the stunningly amazing Jamie XX Essential Mix for BBC 1. Thank god for You Tube or else I don't know where I would have found the 8 minute version of this gem. I like the break down part near the seven minute mark. It slows down a little, the swoon-y synths get pulled up a some in the mix and in the background there is this awesome wobble-wobble-wobble thing going on. (I don't know when I'm ever going to get better at describing this stuff - you are just going to have to live with it.)

Not too techno-y, not too house-y, it just hits this perfect state of rhythm and pulse were you kind of just want it to go on for forever. 

It use to take them days to make an acid track, now it takes them minutes, I wonder how long it took them to make this?

I want to be in Pusha T's crew

First off, a big shout out to John Talabot for re-tweeting yesterdays post. Our traffic increased by over 2,000%. That's hard to beat.

Now, on to the main course



Pusha T's mix-tape from this year, Fear of God, is horribly underrated I think. Heads and shoulders better than the last Clipse album, this album beats hard from start to finish. Considering that its not like we have had a epic year for hip-hop to begin with, you would have thought this would have gotten more attention. Think of this year being the NFL draft class of 2011 - weak all around.

Pusha does a good job of stepping back and letting this one just sort of grow into its self. He doesn't get over-anxious and want to get in front of the perfect beat, he lets it hold its own position and normally, I'm not all that hip to weird singing choruses but it works well here. And, again, Pusha shows he knows what he is doing by just laying off it. He doesn't find a need to get all in it and starting yelling or whatever nonsense rappers have a tendency to do.

Also, I don't care what anyone says, I'm never going to get tired of Pusha T rapping about girls, selling drugs, and spending money. Never. I think it helps that Pusha-T really sounds like he would almost rather be selling drugs still. I'm sure in part of his mind that isn't true, but he makes me believe it. It shouldn't surprise anyone that he would rather hang out with his guns and his girl.