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.