Always Loved A Film

/ David James / 1 Comment

Underworld drop their latest studio album, Barking, on September 14th and are teasing it with the hilarious (and hilariously badass) video for second single Always Loved A Film.  Skateboarding, shoplifting, drinking, girls, joyrides and more… from a group of deliriously ecstatic senior citizens!

I’m guessing it’s a reflection of, or sly commentary on, the men behind Underworld‘s “grandfather” status in the electronic music realm.  They’ve come back with their most straightfoward party starting album (at least since the blissed out live Everything, Everything album and DVD) at a time when most of their peers are curating soft jazz shows on NPR or laying low in the south of France or some such idyllic place.  It may not be the most original slice of dance nirvana or within spitting distance of the band’s 1990’s apex (see Second Toughest In The Infants right here on Optimistic Underground for that) but it sure gets my blood pumping more than most of what 2010 has had to offer.

All I’ll say beyond that is to watch the entire video.  To say things escalate beyond mere (displaced) adolescent destruction is an understatement:  this ride gets wilder until the very last frame.  Enjoy

[pick up Barking soon at amazon or basically anywhere on the 14th.  as a longtime fan I can attest it’s a worthy purchase]

Oneohtrix Point Never – Scenes With Curved Objects

/ David James / Leave a comment

Scenes With Curved Objects has become (possibly) my 2nd favorite release by Oneohtrix Point Never.

Well, this brief cassette release is at least tied with the two LPs preceeding the possibly-album-of-the-year Returnal.  Yes, like those psychotropic soundscapes, it is indescribably gorgeous.  Pulsing with an alien life unique in Oneohtrix Point Never‘s oeuvre, these two live-sourced tracks foreshadow the drifting-cloud majesty of Returnal while rumbling with the some of the most concrete rhythms he (Daniel Lopatin) has yet recorded.

It begins with what sound like marimbas via a familiar-enough repeated melody, simply growing in intensity – never changing – throughout the 9 minutes of Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments.  The draw here is how Lopatin slowly cocoons this spine, draping layer upon layer of undulating synth washes, echoed laser effects, and eventually the swelling heart of warming drone takes everything right off the ground.  Side B opens with what can only be described as The Caretaker (aka Leyland Kirby) riffing on something more triumphant than haunting:  a hollowed out and dispatched-from-the-past orchestral section valiantly tries to break through the corrosion.  Then we abruptly cut to a short murky collage which feels like bumping through a science lab in the dark before drifting directly into the triumphant heart of this piece: The Trouble With Being Born.  An oscillating fuge of an (uncharacteristically) optimistic dystopian anthem, this largest cut of the side’s 9 minutes feels like the true contemplative center of the release, a space where all conscious thought lifts up and outward.  In other words, it’s 5 minutes that will totally “expand your mind,” man.  Then a proverbial sudden-record-scratch moment happens and we cut to an Ariel Pink damaged-AM-pop sound refracted in the same manner as the previous collage, fading toward silence.

It’s quite a ride.  Short but intense.  Listen.

Tracklisting:
A Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments
B Adagio In G Minor Screw/Piano Craft Guild Edit/The Trouble With Being Born/Let It Go

[get the mp3 edition at boomkat or try and pick up the tape via discogs..but good luck with a fair price.]

[see also on Optimistic Underground: Antony and Fennesz on Returnal 7″ and Oneohtrix Point Never and Days of Thunder]

Mount Kimbie – Crooks & Lovers

/ David James / 3 Comments

Mount Kimbie released one of my very favorite little EPs in 2009 titled Maybes.  Sketching an indelible glimpse of truly post-dubstep sounds – embodying not just the unceasing clatter of the streets but the tactile pulse of pensive moments at home in the morning kitchen, the bedroom or bath – no one else spun remotely into their orbit for a long time; not even their follow up effort.  Then came the full length debut…

Crooks & Lovers.  It sounds like nothing you’d expect.  Instead of thriving in the miniature-ambient dubstep realm they created, duo Dominic Maker and Kai Campos sidestep the opportunity to bask in a certain glow.  Gripping their sound ever more tightly, these 35 minutes stake out some truly virgin territory on the beat continent.  All the domestic intimacy of their prior work is amplified while they throw open the windows and breathe in a wider spectrum of textures and feeling.  Every tool in the kitchen has been employed in an assuredly minimal manner, each piece clicking into place with the draw of a magnet, a knife in its sheath.  After several listens what seems to stand out most to me is how tactile the album is.  There’s enough space and silence in here that the sharpness of contrast between the individual elements really snaps in an overtly physical way.  There’s a sense of gravity and heft to these beats.  Imagine the deaf hearing for the first time, the immense clarity of glass breaking or water droplets; how even a handshake cracks like thunder.  Mount Kimbie renders each moment in a high definition embrace.  Close listening is naturally rewarded with exponential returns.

At proper volume, an acute idea of synesthesia forms along with the standing hairs on my neck.  Every millisecond of this thoroughly electronic sound hums like a rough brush on my thumbs, clicks like teeth on my lips, and claps with the force of a pair of hands over my ears.  It’s an unending flow of warm and inviting colors filtering the entire band of visible light.  It smells like home.  This is what makes Crooks & Lovers truly stand apart.

If you’re remotely familiar with beat-centric music today, give Mount Kimbie a try.  If you’re interested, simply buy this album now.  Seriously.

Tracklist:
01. Tunnelvision
02. Would Know
03. Before I Move Off
04. Blind Night Errand
05. Adriatic
06. Carbonated
07. Ruby
08. Ode To Bear
09. Field
10. Mayor
11. Between Time

[grab a copy at forced exposure, boomkat or amazon or somewhere else and be happy you did]

[ps buy Maybes too]

Antony and Fennesz on Returnal 7″

/ David James / 1 Comment

Releasing the closest moment he’s come to a conventional song as a first single, Oneohtrix Point Never (aka Daniel Lopatin) nevertheless takes the road less travelled with this offering.  Pairing a piano+vocal recording with a radical reimagining and leaving the whole affair at that, the man turns over yet another stone on his search to define what, exactly, his music means.

“You’ve never left; you’ve been here the whole time.”

The above quote seems to sum up the artist’s entire raison d’être.  In fact, the elucidated lyrics, as gorgeously sung by Antony Hegarty, directly put to words many of the feelings evoked by the man’s signature aural space.  Accompanied by spare, treated piano and the faintest wisp of echo, the operatic vocalist takes direct aim and amplifies the gut-level impact of Lopatin’s composition while laying bare the melodic underpinning of his enigmatic recording.

As brilliant as it sounds standing alone, the track is swiftly one-upped by Fennesz on the second side.  Alchemizing the original, Antony‘s version, and elemental touchstones from throughout the titular album itself, the Austrian glitch deity twists up an overwhelming cocktail distilling everything which makes Oneohtrix Point Never intriguing in under five minutes.  Simultaneously near-infectious yet more esoteric than the original, the track casts the newly focused vocals into a realm somewhere between the original’s stellar echoes and Antony’s intimate transmission, while providing the synths with both a rhythmic backbone and an environment utterly devoid of gravity.  As in, yes, this version soars more than the artist himself.

As in, I’m beyond elated merely considering the possibility of these two collaborating in the future.  As in…  just listen to the track and know, as I do, what it’s like to have one’s mind blown in this particular way.  It’s a fun ride.  Regardless of how you may feel about the changes, a new and wider and deeper understanding of Oneohtrix Point Never emerges.

Tracklist:
A. Returnal [voice: Antony, piano: Daniel Lopatin]
B. Returnal [remixed by Fennesz]

[grab this 7″ from forced exposure because it’s worth it.]

Brock Van Wey – White Clouds Drift On And On

/ David James / 2 Comments

Brock Van Wey took a headfirst leap off the end point of dub techno last year into the oceanic swells of ambient bliss on this first album under his given name.  Instead of crashing into the waves and sinking, the man usually known as Bvdub simply took flight and never looked down.  This is White Clouds Drift On And On.

Continue reading →

Flying Lotus – Mmmhmm

/ David James / 3 Comments

This is it.  The best music video I’ve seen in a very long time.  Flying Lotus not only outdid himself with Cosmogramma and this song, Mmmhmm, but the video accompaniment rides some serious upper-atmosphere currents.  So light up, sit back, and be blown away.  (and make sure to watch in full screen!)

Now how do you feel?  I believe a certain youtube commentator sums it up best:  “The most stoned video of all time!”  It’s at least a contender.

Accompanied by Thundercat (who helps elevate nearly every moment of Cosmogramma), providing luscious vocals and acrobatic bass work, Flylo strikes my pleasure center from so many angles it took me several listens to realize just how and why I’m in love with it.  From the airy atmosphere (perfectly translated on film) to the percussion that feels like a magnet gathering the debris of some exploded spaceship and compressing it, everything works together to evoke the “space opera” theme the entire album spins around.  The song itself is one half of nearly everyone’s favorite moment on the new album, when the celestial keys of this song stretch into infinity and the man himself drops in with some scatting to lead the way to Do The Astral Plane, his most straightforward balls-to-the-wall banger yet.  I doubt I’m alone in aching for that one to become the next single.

This just makes me imagine a full-album video.  Which, of course, is too much to ask for.  And probably dangerous.  Too many heads would explode.

[if you haven’t picked up the album, get it at the bleep store! You’re seriously missing out, hard.]

Let Me See You Do The Tightrope

/ David James / 1 Comment

Janelle Monáe is an intriguing artist whom I’ve followed since an explosive debut EP dropped in 2008 and I happened to catch a blurb in Rolling Stone (of all places!) about it.  Metropolis: The Chase Suite was a firecracker of sci-fi themes, futuristic funk, fresh production, elastic style and absolutely star-making vocals.  I thought, this kid is absolutely going to blow up.

Then she disappeared.

But not exactly, as it turns out.  Debut LP ArchAndroid came out this Tuesday and to promote it Miss Monáe appeared on David Letterman‘s show for her broadcast premier with first single Tightrope.  Watching this clip convinced me of her raw live-wire talent and the inevitable nature of her rising star.  Enjoy.

That footwork!  That presence!  Those pipes!  That band! The audience appears highly impressed.  Since I’m such a nice guy, watch the original music video as well.  This shit grabs me like few videos have since the 1990’s heyday of the form.  Loose fun yet tightly sculpted and conceptually stylized, it’s the kind of vision I was unable to shake back in that day.  The sort of video which I didn’t realize apparently still exists.

You’re welcome.

[pick the album up on jmonae.com or amazon i guess.  just, somewhere]