The Weekly Froth #16

The Dark Esquire - Situation

Our weekly look into the blogosphere where we talk about six tracks we found out about in the previous Wednesday-to-Wednesday seven-day period.

Track of the week:

‘Situation’  by The Dark Esquire (CFCF remix)

He, it is a funny thing, I loved all the remixes by CFCF last year. They were really good, and then came the album, and for some reason it never really grasped me. This though is another beauty. It is less disco and less dancey than what you might have seen from him next year, and the overall vibe is a bit more in line with his album. But he really turns up the atmosphere on this one. I also really love the vocals here, and how yearning they are, but also how they are not belting over everything and everyone but how it stays within the melancholic framework. Yeah, lovely late night music for insomniacs really, and oh boy do those people need some good music like this. You gotta love the restraint CFCF shows on this one. … Continue Reading

Short Circuitry: January 2010

Night Slugs

Since this month’s sudden thaw fucked our already frayed wiring, Short Circuitry’s been in slow recovery on top of the kitchen radiator and has taken the opportunity to catch up on over a month’s musical backlog. Thankfully, we’re now back to our usual shepherd selves, rounding up and processing the usual herd of electronic releases into pre-shaped, bite-size portions – now with an added ‘free stuff’ section. … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth #15

Track of the week:

‘Fever’ by Jef K and Chris Carrier

Now, I don’t know much about these two men (presumably, they could be very well be women for all I know), but this really gets me in high spirits. The bass is really slick and very dance inducing, and the whole track really has me up on my feet. Lovely disco-ish sound, and I do think there is a cowbell in there, which I’m always in favour of. After two minutes they put in some new sounds to go with that bass which changes the whole complexity of the song, and that just goes on with the addition of vocals as well. First distant, what seems like backing vocals repeating a line, but then actual vocals come in, and they are very disco-y, very in tune with the feeling of the track. The rest of the song stays interesting due to the adding and subtracting of the elements introduced in the first half, and that is why it stays very catchy and very lovely and does not get boring. Fab is the right word, I believe. … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth #14

MIA

Track of the week!

 

 ’Wilderness’ – Active Child

I actually like this very much, this new song by LA’s Active Child. Instrumentally it is a sort of trippy ambient atmosphere, and over that just the most lovely angelic voices. And I just think that is a very nice combination, that juxtaposition of the sometimes more menacing, sometimes more sad instrumentals and those voices almost offering some sort of consolation or forgiveness even. I don’t want to make it sound like it should be played in church, but I think it is rather evocative. Rather cinematic as well. I know at least I will be trying to find a bit more tracks by this artist.

http://hypem.com/track/1020238/Active+Child-Wilderness

‘Home’ – Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (Fromage Disco Edit)

To be honest, I don’t know much about Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, except coming across them during Jarvis’ excellent Radio 6 show, so if I’m stating plainly obvious things or things that are blatantly wrong regarding the whole oeuvre, I do apologize. It kind of reminds me of the Blues Brothers this one, when they have to play in that country shack. It has a bit of that country rolling vibe, the female vocals are actually quite nice, and the whistling is kind of addictive. You can bob your head to this. With that said I cannot imagine me actually listening to this if it wouldn’t be on the radio. I guess it is fair enough, and when this Fromage Disco edit is on you won’t hear me complaining, but heavy rotation material it won’t be for me. Perhaps if you like the country vibe a bit better than I do it will get your constant attention though. That spoken word bit is a tad ridiculous though, as is the only-vocals bit near the ending.

http://hypem.com/track/1010652/Edward+Sharp+The+Magnetic+Zeros+-+Home+Fromage+Disco+edit+

… Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth #13

Hot Chip - 'One Life Stand'

‘Forever In Their Debt’ - by The Revenge (original mix)

He is sort of a big thing in house circles, isn’t he? Too be honest, I’m not gloriously familiar with his output, but I did like that ‘Leave Your Mind’ single that came out not too long ago. This song is driven forth by a deep house beat with occasionally a deep voice mentioning something or another concerning Chicago, which makes sense since Chicago does not only have blues roots I believe. It is nine minutes long, and on the surface there is not too much that goes on except the basic sound. But it seems that minor alterations are constantly made to that basis in speed, volume, and occasionally even in extra sounds. At 5.30 or so the sound changes to just the beat, and you know a build-up is going to come, and indeed it does. Multiple instruments get added slowly, though do not expect a real huge climax or anything. If you like a bit of that Chicago house sound than I do recommend it, because I in any case could see myself dancing to it.

http://hypem.com/track/1005457/The+Revenge+-+Forever+In+Their+Debt+Original+Mix

‘Love Harder’ by Ali Love (Tronik Youth remix)

He is starting to become a recurrent name in the blogosphere, isn’t he? In any case the part I regularly dive into. This is a remix by Tronik Youth, and I must say that I like what he has done with the song because I can remember finding the original a bit on the soft and pop side, but this is quite fun actually. Still a bit pop, but the vocals do not seem as soft as in Ali Love’s original track and you can do a bit of hip wiggling to this. It is not wildly catching or anything like that, and one minute out of the middle wouldn’t have hurt it, but it is danceable and you can sing along to it as extravagant and gay as you please, and a bit of fun on the dance floor is always welcome, ey?

http://hypem.com/track/1008655/Ali+Love+-+Love+Harder+tronik+youth+got+the+love+mix+fix

‘Kungen’ by Love Is All

So who is going to state the obvious and say that the start with the pa-pa-da-pa-pa thingy is a bit, well, corny? And it returns! Oh goody. It actually is a bit of the motif of this song, along with female vocals which feel like really slight. The yelping and the pa-pa-da-pa-pa lines also make the song feel as a bit of a kid fest. I remember seeing them live once and I remember actually enjoying a bit of it, but perhaps they did not play this song.

http://hypem.com/track/1011574/Love+Is+All+-+Kungen

‘One Life Stand’ by Hot Chip (Carl Craig remix)

I like how the more techno sounds of Carl Craig are mixed with poppier elements, undoubtedly re-imaginings of the Hot Chip track. And I guess that was Carl Craig’s idea when doing this, as he is a renowned techno musician, and Hot Chip makes pop-electro, or in any case electronical music with decidedly poppy elements. At around the four minute marker this guitar comes in which I do like in combination with the techno beat, and perhaps it could’ve come a bit sooner, because the track is a whopping ten minutes, and after the four minute mark it really starts going to work with more Hot Chip elements finding their way into the song. One of my pet peeves concerning the band Hot Chip is I personally can’t stand that voice, but I can bear it in songs like ‘Over and Over’ and stuff as then it is not really about the singing but it is just another part of the song. Unfortunately for me, in this remix Carl Craig takes down almost all the techno elements, and the faint throbbing techno beat in the background is the only thing accompanying the voice for about a good minute or so. If you do like the voice this might be a welcome break for you in a 10 minute elephantine track, but I could have lived without.

http://hypem.com/track/1011828/Hot+Chip+-+One+Life+Stand+Carl+Craig+PCP+Remix+

‘Icarus’ by White Hinterland

Deep drums and atmospheric sounds I thought would be the prelude to a very dark track, and with such a title one could easily imagine something to that effect. But then the fragile female vocals come and background singers who go oe-hoe-hoe, so there goes that really. I’m personally more a fan of the darker sides of life, but I can imagine that for some people this admittedly dreamy and atmospheric track might be a treat. Something for snowy days while gazing out of the window, so to that effect it was released at a proper time I suppose. Personally I’m not that into oe-hoe-oe’s and fragile female voices, but I can see how someone would find this soothing or would be able to dream away to it.

http://hypem.com/track/1014275/White+Hinterland+-+Icarus

‘Will You Be There’ by Mimo

Gosh, you know, I like that VEGA mix of ‘Running Out’, another track of Mimo, and I actually think that style might suit his voice better, that kind of softer beat. Here it seems as if he is bidding against the beat, which is quite present. I think if, like VEGA did with his track, the accompanying instrumentals would be a bit more old school disco I would like this track more. This sounds actually a bit more like a remix than that VEGA’s track did, and I don’t want to go on about Palomo’s remix of a different Mimo track, but to me this track’s beat is too present and is fighting the rest of the song, which can be remedied by taking a similar approach as that of Palomo’s. It’s a decent track though. Sorry about linking this one through to MySpace.

http://www.myspace.com/mimononstop

The Weekly Froth #12

Broken Bells

After a brief pause this column returns! Oh joy! First, before we go back to the “the week in blogosphere action” kind of thingy, first a look back at the past few weeks (Christmas and advent, I think) to cherry-pick what came out in the time this column was on temporary hiatus. … Continue Reading

2009: fragments of genre-confounding greatness; a parallel overview

HEALTH - Die Slow

With all the best of the decade lists being flung about at the moment, 2009 is in danger of getting overlooked. You can kind of forgive a few people for wanting to get the ’00s out of the way with to start a fresh in the next decade – in terms of world events it’s been a particularly shocking ten years – but this is a music website (usually) and we must avert our gaze, stick our headphones on and enter the parallel universe that is popular music.

New York cast a long shadow over the independent music world in 2009, just as it had done way back in 2001 – the internet and, more surprisingly, large sections of the mainstream fell for albums by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective and (Jay-Z’s new favourite) Grizzly Bear. These bands made sonically unique albums that still retain a certain amount of insularity – these are carefully-crafted other worlds on record, and they were a little too careful and too crafted for some.

… Continue Reading

2008: dubstep, grime, career-bests and Jay-Z at Glastonbury

Wiley - Wearing My Rolex

Much like the rest of the noughties, 2008 had no defining genre that formed the spine for listening trends and consumer interest; we were instead provided with a rather messy collage of beats, breaks and riffs left to our own devices to sift through the good, the bad and the ugly.

One memorable yet disheartening sensation was the rise of Grime, which swiftly moved from dingy pirate radio studios to the speakers of cheese clubs up and down the country. Most notable of all was Wiley’s ‘Wearing My Rolex’, which opened up a new avenue of electro-house anthems. … Continue Reading

2007: Burial, The Klaxons and Of Montreal

Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future

2007 was a personal landmark year in music, almost entirely aside from any developments in the wider world. As the New Year was ushered in I had the good fortune to be working in a record shop with a group of Tom Waits devotees, opening the doors to an entirely new world of older music I’d previously managed to simply ignore. The start of 2007 was marked by a headlong dive into Waits’ Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones, and the likes of ‘Singapore’, ‘Shore Leave’ and ‘Tango ‘Til They’re Sore’ cloaked the January chill in humid, whisky-soaked warmth. … Continue Reading

2006: Gnarls Barkley, Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

While it was only a few short years ago, 2006 was a real game changer in terms of this decade. The previous year saw the implementation of digital sales into the singles chart and by summer this year Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ became the first UK number one not to sell a single physical copy. It was the also the year that YouTube went supernova and allowed many of us to check out classic clips of bands performing on Top of The Pops while we mourned the final weekly episodes. While the great rush to add people to your fledging MySpace account may have been slightly earlier, there are two acts that will forever be associated with it; Lily Allen and The Arctic Monkeys. … Continue Reading