Disco Inferno – Starbound

/ David James / 3 Comments

I’m sharing with you today one of the best fan-made videos I’ve ever witnessed.  Enjoy.

This is, of course, Starbound: All Burnt Out and Nowhere To Go, perhaps my favorite track on Disco Inferno‘s landmark album D.I. Go Pop (album posted here, and their singles collection posted here).  It’s a tightly coiled bomb of liquid Durutti Column-esque guitar and off-kilter sampling antics, liberally seasoned with the knife-edge lyrical shards of singer Ian Crause.  Nothing more to say than:  enjoy the video, thank the fan on his youtube page, and if you’re not already an obsessive fan like myself, get right on my two prior Disco Inferno posts.

[and seriously, get the whole album. HERE. you’d be morally bankrupt not to!  just kidding.  sort of.]

Oneohtrix Point Never

/ David James / 4 Comments

‘It will astound you.’

The Korgis may not have been prophesizing the likes of Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, but that doesn’t stop me from employing the lyric in prelude to this fantastic adventure.  So come on.  Open up.  Change your heart.

When a tonic this refreshing comes along under strange and rare circumstances, the first impulse is to bottle it up and zealously guard what we can, keeping the secret inside – lest the surprise and wonder be spoiled once the wider world is clued in.  The exuberant thrill of something so foreign and new, mainlining into that place where awestruck dreams and hazy childhood memories  intersect, is a thing to behold.  After burrowing deep into the material and subsisting on the sound alone, though, we emerge with the burning desire to shout about this revelation from the nearest hill top.  We want to place it in the hands of our friends and loved ones, imploring them to give it a try.  We get on the internet and write a blog post about it.

But first, we live in the belly of this beast for a while.  The world inside is warm, coated in a futuristic glaze and resting on a plate of brittle nostalgia.  The illusion of inhabiting my greatest preadolescent sci-fi fantasies threatens to crack at any moment, but the dream sustains over any running time.  The most inviting synthesizer tones on the planet mix with an untethered, noisy veneer to coat the entire sonic range from genteel new age to corrosive heavy drone, spiked with the best and brightest futuristic love letters the past has had to offer.  From Vangelis‘ darkly soaring Blade Runner score to the paranoid stabs of The Terminator, Terry Riley‘s groundbreaking dreamscape A Rainbow In Curved Air to the stark electronic shores of Manuel Göttsching (Ash Ra Tempel), this territory is clearly the province of an indelibly spacey imagination.

Zones Without People, my personal introduction to the artist, is the most obvious place to look now.  In a league populated by a select few contemporary dreamers and astral drifters like Emeralds and White Rainbow (see New Clouds and Best of 2009), Lopatin grasps the sonic galaxy whole cloth and spirits it away to his lab where every star, planet, and asteroid belt is shot through and wrung out with the latest in mind-bending laser technology.  Like the lush oxygen garden aboard the Icarus on its journey to reignite the sun, the entire work is suffused with the gritty footprint of organic life – bird calls, frogs, bubbling rivers, wind and all manner of insects echo from the depths – and organized into a most efficient delivery system for aural dopamine.  Channeling the aforementioned musical gods and hinting at further realms yet unexplored, the half hour recording transcends and transports far beyond its modest borders.  This is a monumental trip, in every sense of the word.

Next we have A Pact Between Strangers, a beguiling triptych of the most effervescent, liquid shapes Lopatin has worked with.  Sandwiched between two 12 minute throbbing drone epics, the title track strikes a soft nerve between the yawning pulse of Gas, the hard lines of straight Detroit techno, and the subtly sampledelic nature of Zones Without People‘s most tactile passages.  Beginning as a relaxed sequel to the opener, When I Get Back From New York floats from the most gently narcotic river bed upwards to find a maelstrom on the surface, a dervish of synth rapids and hissing meteor showers.  As the piece winds to a close and the solar winds exhale, total surrender has been achieved.  This is music to offer oneself up to completely.  Embrace it, climb inside.  Once acclimated, the journey outward is harsh.  The dials here are always pegged at elation, so it’s best not to make a move in that direction.

[with the originals impossibly hard to come by on their limited vinyl and CD-R releases, the majority of OPN’s output has been remastered and packaged into the 2cd Rifts compilation, available at boomkat, amazon, or directly through the man himself at pointnever.com]

STAR – Devastator

/ David James / 2 Comments

STAR is the latest and easily most accessible project from longtime Chicago noise purveyor Scott Cortez, pulling both the most rhythmic and sensual threads from his Astrobrite and Lovesliescrushing projects and twisting it up in a heavy coctail of feral shoegaze.

Not for the faint of heart or those looking for something on the pretty end of the genre spectrum, this album has all the feedback and grit of Loveless, paired with structures so direct, pounding, and straightforward they’d make the White Stripes‘ eponymous debut blush.  Not content to simply burnish a menagerie of effects pedals (ahem, A Place To Bury Strangers), the band crafts a tight little set of addictively hummable songs that shine clear and bright through the storm of amp worship.  It’s fun, active, and humbly brilliant.  Devastator is an unassuming foray into hazy rhythmic stomp and groove love anthems; it’s the kind of album to drive alone at night with, or simply relax with a glass of whiskey and some headphones as company.

[pick this up at lovelyrebelrecords or cdbaby or cduniverse]

The Death of Cool

/ David James / 6 Comments

(or:  I Was Dared!)

Relevancy is ephemeral, hip is an illusion, and trends accompany diminishing returns.  Just saying.

I listen to music that I like, and write about the stuff I really enjoy.  You should too.  There is no shame in this.  Think about something you love.  Be thankful for it, whatever it is.

Why do you like what you like?  Why do you say what you say?  Let us know.

Thank you for reading.

[oh and listen to Ships Without Meaning, by Oneohtrix Point Never – it’s fully streaming on last.fm – one of my favorite new artists last year.  see also: Best of 2009]

Infinitum

/ David James / 2 Comments

Those who know me know that I’ve got a certain itch that only Flying Lotus can scratch. But only two people know the significance this video holds for me.

In anticipation of his upcoming album Cosmogramma (out May 3, 2010 on Warp) I’ve decided to shine a light on one of my favorite artists working today, Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus. To my ears, there isn’t a more exciting and promising career out there, with a body of work that speaks for itself and points to the future in every possible way. Listening to his 2008 masterpiece Los Angeles is to know exactly what heads mean when they say “next level shit.” He’s not only a step ahead of anyone else in the game, but appears to be having the most fun doing it.

This is to be the first in a series of posts leading up to the release of the album I’ve been jonesing for ever since my first bicycle ride with Los Angeles as the soundtrack. I felt it poetic to begin at the end of that album, with this mesmerizing lock-groove-driven number, sprinkled with achingly gorgeous vocals courtesy of Laura Darlington (Mrs. Daedelus and one half of The Long Lost, to those who care). Not only is the song a perfect set closer, but it’s accompanied by one of thoe most simply poetic and visually sumptuous videos I’ve seen in a long while. I’ll let you decide how you like it, but suffice to say it’s works like this which sustain my faith in the art form.

Keep your eyes on here for the latest updates and any tracks which may be dropped between now and May 3.

Nite Funk – Am I Gonna Make It?

/ David James / 4 Comments

One of my favorite artists working today, the insanely talented Dam-Funk, got together with the nocturnally beguiling Nite Jewel one afternoon and crafted this vintage-future-shot of a dusky lovers’ jam.

Continue reading →

BEST OF 2009

/ David James / 14 Comments

So, I took my time.  I like waiting until the year is actually complete before naming the best it offered.  This was worth it, as a few of these entries didn’t make it until the waning days of December.  So, here goes.

BEST OF 2009

*as of january 2010

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

I don’t ascribe to revisionist history.  You probably went ape shit for this album in January but diss it now that your kid brother likes it.  Merriweather Post Pavilion is simply a flat-out fantastic psychedelic pop album.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Sometimes, that’s perfection enough.

———————————————–

Bullion – Young Heartache

Incredibly innovative instrumental hiphop (although that term is sorely lacking here).  This is the first dj-based music I’ve heard since The Avalanches‘ seminal Since I Left You to render even a remotely similar feeling.  Both blushingly romantic and heady as all get out, it’s got more blood pumping in its veins than a hundred ‘real instrument’ based albums.  Pair it with his Get Familiar + Rude Effort single and you’ve got the sweetest half hour of 2009.

[Posted HERE in April]

———————————————–

The Field – Yesterday and Today

Minimal techno blossoming into something altogether more wide-reaching and accessible, expanding the definition of what Kompakt records invokes. Touches of Boredoms‘ tribal transcendence, hypnotic but playful trippiness, and unabashed pop overtones ooze from this album’s pores.  You won’t find an easier ‘in’ to techno anywhere else.

———————————————–

Fox Bat Strategy – Fox Bat Strategy

A decade+ old recording by the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me house band led by the late Dave Jaurequi, curated and released by David Lynch himself. Think everything Lynchian: 50’s pop, piles of reverb, spooky atmospherics, sweet / menacing lyrics, and a creaky, lived in demeanor that helps define this as utterly timeless.  1959, 2009, or 2059, these songs live in your dreams.

[Posted HERE in August]

———————————————–

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Tribal noise drone dance trance whatever you want to call it.  This is deeply affecting, gravitationally heavy dance music for a caveman rave or an asteroid collision.  The most tangible elements of the past locked into a technicolor display of modern virtuosity.  Hypnotizing.  Captivating.  Adrenalizing?

[Posted HERE in September]

———————————————–

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band – Between My Head and the Sky

A longtime hero of the art world returns with one of, if not the best album in her career, with a little help from her friends.  Think John Lennon’s post-Beatles experiments, psyched up kraut grooves straight out of Cologne in the 70s, New York post-punk, no-wave, disco-not-disco, and the most singular and influencial voice in recent history rolled into an adventurous lifetime-spanning collection of music with an energy that puts folks half her age to shame.

[Posted HERE in October]

———————————————–

The Flaming Lips – Embryonic

Don’t call it a return or comeback: this may be the Lips reclaiming their raucous early days as far as shaggy noise goes, but the album is both more experimental and more mature and accomplished than anything they’ve yet unleashed. Harkening back to the ragged psychedelic roots of their sound, using that as a base to jump through everything from their mid-90’s carnival extravaganzas to the string-laden height of their musical growth (Zaireeka / Soft Bulletin), they’ve managed to round up every loose end possible while leaving a whole raft of new threads hanging, ready to pull out towards the future. Nothing in years has sounded this HUGE.

———————————————–

A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Ashes Grammar

Leapfrogging over their 2007 debut by miles, this Philly group synthesizes everything interesting they were known for (shoegaze sheen, noisey feedback twisting, wobbly synth lines and dreampop vocals) and spills forth this continuous dream of blasted pop tunes bubbling from post rock structures (or lack thereof) into the most narcotically unified, dizzying rollercoaster of an album this year.

———————————————–

White Rainbow – New Clouds

Everything you know about dream music is laid out, multiplied, and promptly steamrolled by this masterpiece.  More than perhaps any LP in 2009, this one defines the year for me.  So-called hypnagogic pop has nothing on the truly woozy mind-melting 4 tracks contained here.  The review I wrote last fall sums it up succinctly.  Basically, this is bliss on record.  ‘Clouds’ don’t even begin to conjure the effervescent joy White Rainbow rides here.  Put it on low volume to set sail for dreamland, or crank it up to shake your house apart in a sun-worshipping frenzy.

[Posted HERE in October]

———————————————–

Shackleton – Three EPs

Hearing about both the continued vitality and impending death of dubstep all year, it’s easy to understand folks stepping back and ignoring the whole galaxy while the dust settles, content to pick up whatever pieces are left after the fact.  Well fuck that laziness.  Shackleton has done more to stretch the boundaries of the genre, incorporating nearly every active subgenre of electronic music in vogue this decade into a cavernously dubbed out sculpture of forward thinking chill out music.  Play it to anyone thinking there’s nothing new under the sun and watch the grins slowly creep up.  Weed optional.

[Posted HERE in November]

———————————————–

Dam-Funk – Toeachizown

Funk, through and through.  This is the most futuristic album made with old school instruments all year, if not the entire “aughts” decade.  Dam-Funk has crafted such a deeply singular body of work here that it demands attention from anyone nearing orbit with the massive (2CD, 5LP!) thing.  Despite standing far outside any of the trendy genres 2009 coughed up, this album stands head and shoulders above anything your favorite blog went apeshit over – and because of this it will most likely be far more fondly recalled when the time comes to look back on these days.  Get it now to hear what I mean.  Or go back to your ‘chillwave’ acts which you’ll be inevitably shitting on in a year’s time.

———————————————–

Oneohtrix Point Never – Rifts

This one snuck up on me at the last second; in fact I’d only heard a track or two before the official end of 2009.  Luckily I have the common decency to wait until the year is actually complete before sharing the best of it (ahem, every music magazine in existence) so a gorgeous bombshell of alien earworm fantasy like this can get the recognition it’s due.  A 2CD set collection the band’s 3 LPs and various rarities, Rifts takes me on a trip through a wormhole filled with the best 80’s soundtracks (think Thief, Blade Runner, Legend, etc etc etc) and minimalism/drone epics of the modern era, mixed through a lense orbiting Terry Riley, Ashra, Emeralds, and anyone else flitting through your mind while reading this.  Although arriving at the tail end of the year (for me), this one colors the past 365 days as deeply as anything else on the list.

———————————————–

The Best of the Rest

These albums may not have made the exhalted short list, but they’re all VERY worthy pieces of sound from 2009.

ROVO – Nuou

Dr. Who Dat? – Beyond 2morrow

Boredoms – Super Roots 10

Dan Deacon – Bromst

The Durutti Column – Love in the Time of Recession

Hudson Mohawke – Polyfolk Dance

Coconot – Cosa Astral

Peter Bjorn and John – Living Thing

Shogun Kunitoki – Vinonaamakasio

Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us

Lukid – Foma

Dorian Concept – When Planets Explode

Dusty Kid – A Raver’s Diary

Ras G & The Afrikan Space Program – Brotha From Anotha Planet

Fever Ray – Fever Ray

Burial & Four Tet – Moth / Wolf Cub

Prefuse 73 – Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian

Meanderthals – Desire Lines

Subway – Subway II

J Dilla – Jay Stay Paid

Paul White – The Dreams of Paul White

Moby – Wait For Me

Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue

Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas – II

Lunar Testing Lab – Seashore Blvd.

Ganglians – Monster Head Room

Yagya – Rigning

Tim Exile – Listening Tree

JJ – jj n° 2

Nosaj Thing – Drift

Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs

Martyn – Great Lengths

Harmonic 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence

The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa

Flying Lotus – LA EP 3X3

Nudge – As Good As Gone

OOIOO – Armonico Hewa

The Antlers – Hospice

Oh No – Dr. No’s Ethiopium

Flight of the Conchords – I Told You I Was Freaky

Eliot Lipp – Peace Love Weed 3D

the Gaslamp Killer – My Troubled Mind EP

Universal Studios Florida – Ocean Sunbirds

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon

Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country

Tyondai Braxton – Central Market

Teebs – Teeps 09 Mix

Memory Tapes – Seek Magic

Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2

Emeralds – Emeralds

DJ /rupture – Solar Life Raft

Dr. Strangeloop – Are We Lost Mammals of an Approaching Transcendental Epoch?

Boris – Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 3

Mos Def – The Ecstatic

Sweet Trip – You Will Never Know Why

5: Five Years of Hyperdub [2cd label compilation]

Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind EP

King Midas Sound – Waiting For You

Fontän – Winterhwila

Sun Araw – Heavy Deeds

The-Dream – Love vs Money

Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem

Black to Comm – Alphabet 1968

Buddy Peace – Late Model Sedan

Grackle – Desert Acid EP

Suishou No Fune – Phantom of the Eternal Night

———————————————–

NOT FROM 2009:

Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein

Shogun Kunitoki – Tasankokaiku

Dimlite – This Is Embracing

Steve Reich – Music For 18 Musicians

A.R. Rahman – Dil Se

Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

Billie Holiday – Lady In Satin

Caural – Mirrors for Eyes

Santo & Johnny – Santo & Johnny

Pharoah Sanders – Karma

Omar Khorshid – Rhythms of the Orient

Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul

Dif Juz – Soundpool

John Cale & Terry Riley – Church of Anthrax

Alice Coltrane – Transcendence

Boris – Flood

Bill Fay – Bill Fay

23 Skidoo – Seven Songs

Suishou No Fune – Prayer For Chibi

the Gaslamp Killer – I Spit On Your Grave

Z-Rock Hawaii – Z-Rock Hawaii

Adventure Time – Dreams of Water Themes

Manuel Göttsching – E2-E4

Machine Drum – Urban Biology

Blue Sky Black Death – Late Night Cinema

Bows – Cassidy

Les Rallizes Dénudés in general

Have a Nice Life – Deathconsciousness

Tetsu Inoue – Ambient Otaku

William Basinski – El Camino Real

…and there are dozens more from outside 2009 which simply aren’t popping into my consciousness at the moment.  As I recall them, I just may add to this list.

———————————————–

Thank you all for reading.  2009 was the first year here and it was a spectacular year.  Here’s hoping for at least a few more!