After about a thousand plays over the past month, my hand now automatically scrolls to the D’s in my phone when I start my car in the morning.  If you ever have a need to kick-start your morning, there is little more effective than blasting “Nike“ while chugging a coffee:

Starting his career as a bass player for Joakim and others, Juan de Guillebon began in the Paris electronic scene at 14 and has been on the expanding fringe of music ever since.  His debut album Taki 183 vacillates from light to dark, from synth-pop banger to minimal trips, from dreamscape to the dark side of the moon.  As a whole it covers a massive portion of the electronic spectrum, while still making sense as one unit.  As a professional clown I know once said, “devastatingly diverse but fanatically focused”.

Now, if you just heard songs like “Nike” and  ”Matthias & Charlotte“, you might miss the darkness that creeps into this album.  ”Fantasy” is accompanied by a twisted and startling video that begins with innocence and ends with atrocity.  NSFW, NSFL, involves anime, aliens, and is, like I said, twisted.  Not for the faint of heart.  

Anyway this album is a real monster, check out the entire thing here.  Scroll to the bottom for the player.  DyE SoundCloud page here, with remixes.

Cheers,

Kelbs

It doesn’t take long to realize that these aren’t the most normal people you know. Justice has been in the business of melting people’s brains for awhile now. If you need some reassurance of that, give their full-length debut LP, “†”, a quick listen, or its even more pupil-dilating live version, “A Cross the Universe”.

Samples of said insanity below:

Official Trailer (recommend this DVD if you don’t have it)

However, this isn’t a post about Justice circa-2007; this is a post about their new album, “Audio, Video, Disco”, to be released next week. Don’t be fooled by the giant stone cross on the cover, the similarity between the two albums mostly ends there. They get things kicked off with Horsepower, almost as a teaser that this is going to be “† vol. 2″. Here’s a sample:
Horsepower

You’ll quickly notice, though, that this is not another pulsing electro-rock-house album.The emphasis… is on the rock part. Tracks like On’N'On and Newlands sound as at home on rock records of the late 70′s and 80′s as they do here:
Newlands

Justice has never been a band (band? DJs?) that has been particularly focused on the tastes of their fans. Just as the crunchy, ears-bleeding electro-riffs of “†” freaked out a bunch of fans unaccustomed to these kinds of sounds (think about mainstream this album would be perceived as by today’s neon dubstep army), this album is going to piss off fans by being different. It’s worth a listen or ten, but probably won’t fuel your next couch-on-fire riot party.

Especially for this post, I am going to go as light as possible on “analysis” and stick to “listening to this album is like eating marshmallows – fluffy and delicious”.  The reasons are many, but first and foremost is that I/we have no real business critiquing artists who are daily creating new sounds, new genres, and expanding the musical library exponentially.  Second, this is not the type of album that needs to be picked up and looked at under a microscope.

Tycho is Scott Hansen, an artist and producer from San Francisco.  His new LP Dive continues where The Past is Prologue left off – swirling pleasantly into oblivion.  Catchy rhythms, ephemeral vocals, and glassy hooks make you sit down and stay a while.  Strolling through “A Walk”, Scott Hansen drips “Hours” into a “Daydream”, and “Dive”‘s down to the “Coastal Brake”.  If ever song titles were emblematic of the atmosphere presented, Dive effortlessly does so.

Take a listen –  light and refreshing doesn’t begin to cover it.

Tycho – Hours

Tycho – Coastal Brake

Tycho SoundCloud

 

 

Scene: Neon Sullivan (Com Truise opener)

Setting: Lincoln Hall

Attendees: Various performers of Barnum & Bailey

Concert Notes: Alan Palomo has added a person or two to his Neon Indian live band since last year.  This change, in addition to the slightly less wacky nature of Era Extraña, results in a Neon Indian that hits the stage harder than before.  While I was a bit distracted by my fellow blogger Duchovny’s parkour style attempts at grinding on the handrail, I saw an act that is much more capable of rocking larger venues.  This was especially made possible by not spending half the show using his wonky magic wand instrument routine (though that is awesome).

Security Notes: While the show largely went by uneventfully, one patron managed to backflip himself over the right side railing approximately 45 seconds into the show.  He was informed this was strike one – and was later asked to drink coffee, and then water.  When said patron was observed hurricaning a Guinness, he was then shown the exit (this was akin to putting a cat in a bathtub).  A compatriot then asked to be kicked out with said original patron, and we obliged.

What were you doing when you were 17? I was a serious computer gamer nerd, took too many AP classes, and played some high school sports.  If I was lucky, a friend would throw a party on the weekend so I could choke down some light beer.  I was significantly less cool than the 17 year old Madeon, who is the subject of this post.

The teaser for his budding touring career is a pretty convincing argument to move to Paris and scum around the neu disco scene.  It sometimes seems like half of all the new music I’m listening to is French, whether its electronic or not.  Anyway, check it out:

I’m no expert on the matter, but the video shows some snippets of him using a launchpad (the keyboard) and ableton live (the software).  The fact that technology makes this type of thing accessible to anyone is mindblowing.  Here is him using this setup for a short mix – this video went viral a few months ago, and its easy to see why.

There are few people who have gotten so much hype over so little actual production – his anthology is currently a short stack of remixes and a few original tracks.  His sound is incredibly crisp and clear, and making many of his own sounds gives it his own flavor – he says he never samples for his original tracks.  Hopefully his tour expands and comes to Chicago eventually – it will be interesting to follow his career.

http://soundcloud.com/madeon

Just around the corner. Get your sick days ready because Lolla is coming to town and bringing the noise. Rather than fill up this site with the usual paragraph after paragraph of word vomit, straight to the goods.

In order of appearance:

Fuck Buttons – Bright Tomorrow

Hot Chip – Hold On

Chromeo – 100%

Tiga – Luxury

The Strokes – Alone, Together

Metric – Help, I’m Alive

Spoon – I Turn My Camera On

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – 40 Day Dream

Cut Copy – Lights and Music

Phoenix – If I Ever Feel Better

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp

MGMT - Brian Eno

Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

Felix Da Housecat – We All Wanna Be Prince

Arcade Fire – Month of May

See you at Devo on Thursday night at the Congress – and at the beach on Monday.

Happy trails,

D

Nothing sucks worse than a second record… sometimes.

“You have your whole life to make your first record and 24 months to make your second”

How do you duplicate the experience and passion you put into your first [hit] album, the record that made you famous, into another commercially popular product that the public will both love again and you will be satisfied with?

Needless to say, this is a difficult process. Creating In Utero likely pushed Cobain over the edge (exception to the rule [mega hit] – but also not true second album). I don’t think Ezra Koenig went through the same angst to push Contra through production, but he didn’t have to worry about continuing to define his own genre.

With this in mind, in the face of huge expectations in the wake of The Rhumb Line, The Orchard doesn’t fall flat on its face. It lacks the powerful, emotional pace of its predecessor, explores new territory, and delivers some quality new tracks. It also maintains Ra Ra’s reputation for delivering music that is extremely tight, technically. It’s slower, more thoughtful, and maybe, like a lot of second albums, will be appreciated more by the fans that truly support the band than album before it.

A few of the choicer singles:

Shadowcasting (Jackson Browne, anyone?)

Do You Remember

You and I Know -> Note cellist Alexandra Lawn’s debut as lead vocals (another good reason to see them live)

Enjoy, and see these guys in concert as soon as possible (Oct 5th at SmartBar would be a good choice)
Duff

It had to happen eventually.

After over 2 years of waiting, Cut Copy fans are getting their first taste of new material from the Aussie synth-pop crew. But this isn’t your standard synth-o-matic affair that you have grown to know and love. The standard club banging mega-electropop that you’ve probably heard in your sleep has been replaced by a new brand of summer-y electro-rock that you might expect if one of the Beach Boys had stumbled onto DJ equipment.

Just imagine what music would sound like now.

Here’s the first track out so far - Where I’m Going

Sound like a good start to another good album. Catch them at Lollapalooza this weekend.

So….. the big question. Where have we been?

“Oh yeah those blogging assholes thought that they were really hot shit and then they disappeared”

Well….. true. Until recently. See there’s this really agonizing time-suck called work and it was jealous of the blog taking our leisure time – but no more excuses. We are lazy and the blog went into a coma.

So what do we do? Rather than go on about the endless details of stone polishing, insect taxidermy, and prostitution, I found it more useful to associate a picture of each of your favorite bloggers at work.
(Working theme songs upcoming upon my using a non-work typewriter to upload it)

Busybomb

blackbeard

kelbs

duff

Something musical-related coming soon.

Duchov