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April 3, 2009
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December 14, 2008
(Clockwise from top left:) Sebastien Grainger, Tegan and Sara, Starfucker, Vive La Fête
When the whole world has turned into one giant, dirty, brown slushy what better way to kick off the week than with a playlist of guilty favourites?
Here they are, then, some old, some new, some borrowed, some blue:
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December 9, 2008
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November 27, 2008
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November 5, 2008
Take flight through Montreal as a papillon...
A stunningly beautiful song, and equally mesmerizing video, from über talented Montrealer Alexandre Désilets:
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September 24, 2008
Midnight Juggernauts started out as a couple of blokes from Melbourne, Australia.
They first made a blip on my musical radar with their awestastic remix of Dragonette's "I get around".
Then they went and put out a gleefully bombastic blast of awesomeness called Dystopia. And now they tour with the likes of Justice, Crystal Castles, Klaxons, Holy Fuck, etc, etc.
Anyway.
They have that dirty, woozy, spiraling sound* that always makes me feel slightly drunk and stupidly ecstatic. (Or ecstatically stupid?)
Either way, it's good times. Here's "Tombstone" (the Popular Computer Remix):
*First honed to perfection by Vitalic (<-- And you follow that link at your own peril. You have been warned.)
[Midnight Juggernauts - MySpace] [Band website]
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September 16, 2008
So from buchata to tango we go...
May I introduce Bajofondo, a music collective from -- respectively -- Argentina, Uruguay and North America.
They've been compared to the Gotan Project (which, in my humble opinion, is a marvellous compliment) and, indeed, Bajofondo's modus operandi is their deep and abiding love of tango.
They take this cherished musical genre from Argentina and Uruguay and perform a kind of cross-pollination -- fusing elements of electronica, house music and hip hop with the more traditional forms and instruments of tango.
The result is a most heady and savoury brew.
Such is their cachet, in fact, that all kinds of indie royalty (including Elvis Costello) signed on to their recent album Mar Dulce.
Two of my favourite tracks from the album are "Pa' Bailar" (featuring Ryōta Komatsu), and the hip hop-inflected and incredibly catchy "El Andén", with Mala Rodríguez on guest vocals:
[Bajofondo - MySpace] [Ryōta Komatsu - Website] [Mala Rodríguez - MySpace]
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August 7, 2008
I've played this song about -- oh I don't know -- five thousand billion gazillion times now? And it still has the ability to make my extremities tingle.
That's right: Extremities.
Tingling.
I know that sounds sort of rude, but have you heard this song? If you've heard this song, then you'll know exactly what I mean.
Yes, it's kind of dorky. Yes, it's all gangling, awkward angles and blatant 80s influences.
But it's sexy -- as -- hell.
Listen to the way the song appears to fade out around the 3:04 mark ... and then the way it kicks back in with that bass line?
Go on, just try and tell me that it doesn't bring on all kinds of tingling of the extremities.
You can try. I might believe you. Thousands wouldn't.
[Azzido Da Bass - MySpace]
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June 10, 2008
At only 22 years of age, the prodigious (and disturbingly talented) Zach Condon has already released two albums.
Better known to the world at large as Beirut, Condon's music is an enchanting blend of folk-pop, heavily influenced by Eastern European folk and balkan gypsy music. Despite his youth, and the fact that he grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his music has an unmistakable old country feel, and a maturity that belies his tender years.
His music is boisterous and romantic, the kind of thing you might imagine yourself listening to in the Mediterranean somewhere, late at night, under the stars, seated round a large table with a gaggle of strangers made fast friends through a day of drinking and revelry.
Suffice it to say, it's not the kind of thing you would expect to hear in a club.
Until now.
DJs Fredo & Thang, from the Gameplayer label, have released a mash-up called "Beirut Disco".
Dub inflected beats and snatches of spoken french are woven through swathes of organ and Beirut's slightly nasal vocals to create some kind of gypsy folk electronica hybrid.
It's Beirut gone urban.
And whether in a club, or sitting on a terrace drinking a beer, Beirut Disco is the perfect accompaniment to the heat and bluster of summer.
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June 6, 2008
What starts out like Elastica before morphing into Interpol by way of Joy Division?
It's not a trick question, and okay, I'm doing those annoying reductive comparisons again, but really, Baltic Fleet have to be heard to be believed.
And trust me, I'm not slighting the band in the least. Anything that starts out like Elastica before morphing into Interpol by way of Joy Division has me from the get-go.
When I say 'the band' I really mean Paul Fleming, keyboard player for Echo and The Bunnymen. Baltic Fleet is his baby.
He apparently wrote the album when he was on tour with the Bunnymen, trying to capture, in music, what inspired him in each city around the world.
While Baltic Fleet is a new discovery for me, a quick listen to the myspace page suggests to me that the band (ie, Fleming) is going to be huge.
He certainly deserves to be.
One of my favourite songs (out of an already incredibly strong line up) is "3 Dollar Dress".
It's hypnotic and savage -- a driving slice of indie rock heaven.
And what's more, it starts out like Elastica, before morphing into Interpol, by way of Joy Division...
Here's "3 Dollar Dress":
[Baltic Fleet - MySpace] [blow up records]
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May 26, 2008
Who is Danger? The newest protégé on the so-called Nu-Disco, or French Touch, scene? (Techtonik anyone?)
And who is DatA? Who the hell knows? That's what MySpace is for!
En tout cas, and whatever the label, I am a sucker for that sound.
So sue me.
[Danger - MySpace] [DatA - MySpace]
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May 19, 2008
When I say Ladyhawke, I'm talking about Kiwi singer Pip Browne, not the execrable 80s movie, and not the band from Vancouver.
Sharon O'Neill lookalike (if you're a kiwi kid of the 80s you'll know who I'm talking about), Ladyhawke wears her influences firmly on her sleeve: Think Stevie Nicks, with a healthy dose of Chrissie Hynde attitude, and a youthful, vulnerable quality vis-à-vis Kim Wilde, circa "Kids in America".
Her track "Paris is burning" has been given the Alex Gopher treatment, and what a thing of beauty it is.
Gopher's mash-up of "Paris is Burning" has a definite 80s aesthetic, which is almost certainly why I find it irresistible. I love the cycling, sinuous synth line, the handclaps, and the LCD Soundsystem-inspired cowbell in the background.
The song teeters on the edge of all-out cheesiness, but this should be true for any good club tune worth its salt.
All told, "Paris is Burning" is a delicious, thoroughly intoxicating pop confection.
Check it out:
[Ladyhawk - MySpace]
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May 12, 2008
Sometimes the iPod's shuffle feature throws up the most weird and wonderful juxtapositions.
How about Crystal Castles' "Courtship Dating" followed by dEUS' "Suds and Soda"?
Pure brilliance.
Toronto's Crystal Castles have been getting a lot of ecstatic press lately, and deservedly so (in my most humble opinion).
I've seen lots of reviews by blokes raving about how the Atari sound takes them right back to their game-boy-geek adolescence. It's a "I-
guess-you-had-to be-there" kind of thing, and since I wasn't, I don't get it. But I take their word for it.
For me, Crystal Castles suggest some kind of f*cked up, magnificent mélange of Sleater Kinney, Le Tigre and Soulwax.
They're their own trip, though, no question. So if you haven't yet, you should leap on the ride!
As for dEUS, they're old favourites. And somehow CCs' "Courtship Dating", with its shouted, call and response chorus segues perfectly into the see-sawing intro and shouted, disjointed verses of "Suds and Soda".
Go figure.
[Crystal Castles - MySpace] [dEUS - Band website]
Update: Seems CC are in a bit of hot water of late, for liberally pilfering samples from a community they'd previously denied any knowledge of. (Thanks to my anonymous commenter for the tip.) There's a good breakdown over at Create Digital Music of the controversy, along with an interesting discussion and examples of the offending songs.
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May 8, 2008
People go crazy for summer here in Montreal.
Windows are thrown open, pale, sickly faces are lifted to the sun, and clothes are removed in a most reckless and arbitrary manner.
We creep out from our slovenly, smelly little nests and slowly unfurl in the warmth.
People are happy. They smile at strangers in the street. Everyone is all hail-fellow-well-met. The world is full of endless opportunity.
At the beginning of every summer, I join the rest of Montreal in this collective, dizzy exhalation of joy.
Sadly, it lasts barely a moment.
My summer bubble of amnesia bursts abruptly, and I remember -- with clenched fists and an ever present snarl -- why summer in Montreal is an awful time for grumpy old misanthropes (like me).
Summer means construction.
It means every man and his dog decides they have to fix their rotting balconies and sinking driveways and collapsing roofs.
And god forbid that construction crews start at 9 a.m. like every other civilized profession.
No. Construction crews start their day at 4-fucking-a.m.
Alright, I concede: that may not be strictly true. But when you're fast asleep at 7 a.m. and woken by what sounds like a truck backing up in your living room, pipes dropping from several stories into your bedroom, a band saw in your kitchen, and men yelling at each other in your bathroom, it feels like 4-fucking-a.m.
Disorientated and disgruntled after this less than auspicious wakeup call, you weave off to work on the bicycle you pulled out of storage at the beginning of spring.
You've decided it'd be a great idea to risk life and limb by entering the insane and unpredictable world of Montreal's roads, where, daily, pedestrians, cyclists and drivers try to kill one another through various staggering displays of inattention.
(The season has barely begun, and I, for one, have already kissed the asphalt. A jay-walking pedestrian stepped blindly off the pavement, I slammed on the breaks -- and flew right up and over the handlebars. Quite spectacular, really. The bruises are only just starting to fade.)
Having braved the roads once again at the end of your work day, you stagger into your apartment and collapse on the couch. You sip your lemonade and enjoy the breeze and think how nice it is to have escaped the madness outside.
You're startled from your reverie by a blood-curdling scream.
It's a child screeching, full-throated, at the top of her lungs. My god, is she being garroted? Is someone trying to remove her eyeballs with a fork?
You leap from the sofa and bolt onto your balcony, looking around wildly for the source of the noise, so you can run and help.
Down on the street below you see some neighbourhood children. They are playing on the grass. They are being watched over by a guardian. The screaming-banshee-child is one of their number. She lets one loose every minute of so.
You can only stare in abject horror and wonder: if you'd made that kind of noise when you were a child, your mother would've garroted you.
While you're gazing at this perplexing scene, a neighbour from the opposite apartment block comes out onto his balcony. (You could probably spit on his shoes, your balconies are that close together.)
As you glance over, you see him whip out some kind of mouth organ piano thing.
He begins to play. Tunelessly, as far as you can make out.
Now you're staring in open-mouthed consternation at your neighbour.
Number one, he's a grown man, why is he playing this fucking toy? Number two, what makes him so certain that everyone within a two mile radius wants to hear him play his fucking toy?
Right about now your nerves are at snapping point.
You stomp inside.
Once you threw open your windows to feel the warm, refreshing breeze.
Now all you want to do is slam them shut on this mayhem.
Which is not an option, of course, since in no time at all you would be sweltering in a hellish oven, consumed by indignation and ire.
Ah summer.
What power you have to make us suffer and like it.*
If I could set the experience of a Montreal summer to music, it would have to be Fuck Buttons' "Sweet Love for Planet Earth".
Oh, sweet, sweet irony.
[Fuck Buttons - MySpace] [eMusic]
*Russell Baker
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May 5, 2008
Discovery of the day: The dø vs. Heyday.
The who?
Anyway. Big sound. Fuzzy, galloping bass, anguished vocals -- it's like the Knife collided with Röyksopp in a dark alley way, got carnal, and had a love child (long lost twin, rumour has it, of Mika).
Dance music this fun should be a crime.
[the dø - MySpace] [Amazon] [Heyday - MySpace]
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April 22, 2008
Cars & trains is the electronic music project of Oregon-based Tom Filepp.
Think, if you will, Andrew Bird (via his live Fingerlings recordings) mashed with Four Tet.
I'm a great one for reductive comparisons, but suffice it to say, Cars & Trains is a glorious, intricate mess of contradictions.
The sound is at once folky and organic, but with a heavy glitch-beat aesthetic. It manages to feel both nostalgic and pastoral, while somehow encapsulating the loneliness, agitation and alienation of urban environments.
That may seem ambitious (and perhaps even improbable) but Filepp pulls it off.
His is a highly distinctive, original voice. Expect great things.
Here's "That reoccurring dream where I'm always..."
[Cars & Trains - MySpace] [Become a fan on Facebook]
You can download a number of free Cars & Trains tracks from the Circle into Square website.
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April 12, 2008
Sometimes you randomly stumble across an artist who makes you sit up and pay attention, tout de suite-like.
You find them, sans hype, sans information, and they blow your mind so thoroughly you immediately want to run out and tell everyone you know.
L'indice is just such a discovery for me.
All I know about this bloke is that his name is Vincent Blain, he's based in Montreal and has worked in the past with artists like Navet Confit, Lynda Lemay and Alexandre Champigny.
He's also up as a semi-finalist for this year's edition of Francovertes (for which I wish him all the merde).
I don't know how to describe his music. Sonorous electronica? Extraordinarily accomplished?
Well, anyway -- listen, you can decide -- here's "Petite épopée" and "Deux sang" from Démo:
[L'indice - MySpace]
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September 25, 2007
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September 7, 2007
Nothing says summer and beers and BBQ like a little kiwi dub.
Dub is huge in the motherland.
I've never really understood why, exactly.
It could be the fact that it accessorizes really well with outdoor concerts, a beer or three, and a lot of weed.
Here in the North our own shimmering chimera of a summer season is disappearing -- fast -- so let's see her out in style with a couple of tunes from two of New Zealand's best:
Salmonella Dub - "Push On Thru" + Sola Rosa - "Sleepwalker"
[Sola Rosa - MySpace]
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According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, can we really trust Wikipedia? And yes, this is thorough-going laziness) -- but anyway -- according to Wikipedia Justice are a French electro house duo consisting of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay.
They've been on the scene since 2003, but released their debut album in June this year.
Think: a harder-edged Daft Punk, with the irreverence and playfulness of LCD Sound-system.
I don’t want to reduce the band to subjective comparisons, however, because it’s entirely its own beast.
A lean, hungry, very clever little beastie. Here’s Let There Be Light and Phantom Part II:
[Justice - MySpace]
