Not the biggest Scare fan, but they’re definitely riling some feathers with their debut Oozevoodoo (whatever the fuck that is/was/will be).

Their current single, Could Be Bad is being pummeled on indy radio around Australia right now, it’s hard to miss.. it’s a bit Paper Scissors, a bit Klaxons… maybe a really angry version of Dukes of Windsor even. Like Dukes of Windsor if they lived in Eltham, and weren’t Dukes, but peasants, working away their humble lives in servitude to someone.

Anyway. Here’s a sure-fire thing for y’all indy-disco DJ’s… great little weapon from Stereogamous, which reminds me slightly of that Test Icicles (not to be confused with the Testeagles) remix Digitalism did many moons ago, when i still had my virginity, red hair and that’s about it.

The Scare – Could Be Bad (Stereogamous Remix)

Oozevoodoo is out and aboot right now

-Mandu

This photo notwithstanding, I really like Evil Nine, and have done for quite a while. I was (electronically) coming of age in the nu-skool breaks scene just as their debut album ‘You Can Be Special Too’ really started making waves in late 2003, so from the get go their particular brand of stomping, rock-tinged, snare-kick mayhem became the benchmark against which all other tracks were measured. Crooked, Restless, Hired Goons, Hazy Way, Sabot, Music – all were, and remain, solid place-getters in my ‘top dance tracks of all time’ list.

But then the Evil Nine boys, Pat and Tom, went quiet for five odd years. There was still plenty of DJing going down, but the entire period 2004-2008 witnessed at most a handful of remixes and, thankfully, a few suitably iconic mixes. In particular, their FabricLive 28 in mid 2006 was one of the first, and better mainstream statements from the then burgeoning electro/clash/rock movement (it managed to feature SMD, Justice, Riton, Mystery Jets, Boys Noize, Digitalism and Uffie, amongst others). Although, listening to their tracks from 2003/4, you realise that, as far as beats and sensibilities go, they were pretty much doing it before everybody else realised it was there to be done.

Then, in February this year, they released ‘They Live’ (September last year if you lived outside of Australia), a cranking assortment of suitably heavy, zombie themed numbers with appearances from El-P, Autokratz, Toastie Taylor and others. While still very much being the band that delivered up ‘You Can Be Special Too’, the album seemed to further fuse their signature one-two breaks style with the power-rock backdrop from which they both originally hailed. The result is a more detailed and more listenable LP, albeit one that is perhaps less immediately dancefloor friendly. But, given this, almost more exciting than the album itself (at least for me) has been the suite of EPs and remixes it has spawned, bringing in such esteemed producers as Breakbot, Trevor Loveys, Adam Freeland, Shir Khan, Alex Metric and U.N.K.L.E.

To date there’s been the first single They Live, followed by the El-P heavy All The Cash, and, most recently, the album closer Icicles. Not that they’ve been lazy in their own time: they’ve contributed a couple of remixes on their own releases, have put out a stonking remix for Marine Parade label boss Adam Freeland and have another EP due out in July, the appropriately epic (but very under wraps) The Power EP.

But that may well be the longest I’ve ever gone on this site without a joke. My apologies. To make up, here’s proof that Benny Hill makes everything funnier. And now: music!

Find enclosed their rolling, soaring, almost sublime 2005 take on Santos’ Sabot, their dancefloor-shredding remix of Freeland’s new politically charged electro-rock anthem ‘Under Control’ (taken from Freeland’s forthcoming, and much anticipated new album ‘Cope’) and finally their solid as Iraq reversion of one of the “They Live” highlights, Icicles.

Santos – Sabot (Evil Nine Remix)

Freeland – Under Control (Evil Nine’s Graveyard Smash)

Evil Nine – Icicles (Evil Nine’s Graveyard Smash)

The album They Live and the They Live, All The Cash and Icicles singles are all available now from iTunes and Beatport. Both the album and singles have pretty much unimpeachable track selection and are very much worth checking out and purchasing irresponsibly. They come with my highest recommendation. And, I assure you, I don’t get excited by muc- OH MY GOD, IT’S A CAT PLAYING A KEYBOARD!!!!

Yes.

-luke

I don’t know what a zoneplex is, but apparently Triobelisk is the mysterion of it. I don’t even really know what a mysterion is either, and I’ll admit that a little more apologetically because I think it’s actually a real word. My own short-fallings aside, Triobelisk has just released his second EP, the deceptively titled 1, via Swedish Columbia Records, and as part of his “Economic Depression Deal,” he’s offering the entire thing for free download here. Of course sometimes artists need to eat, and as a happy coincidence sometimes we prefer things in high quality, so you can name your price and download it in one of eight formats, also at the link above.

Triobelisk’s mysterious persona is intriguing enough in itself, but upon discovering that the man behind the alias is the Romanian-born Shelby Cinca, things become a whole lot more intriguing. Former frontman of the now-defunct post-hardcore bands, Frodus and Decahedron, a fourth of data-punk outfit, Frantic Mantis, with Division of Laura Lee’s Håkan Johansson and Per Stålberg, not to mention the frontman of the Washington-based, The Cassettes, it’s fair to say Cinca’s not just some bedroom producer with an affinity for gnomes and mythology. And having already released two solo albums pre-Triobelisk, you could hardly dismiss him as just another Danger rip-off.

Further afield, Cinca runs the Passkontroll design collective with Johansson, and their site is well worth an explore. Also absolutely worth an explore is Finnish artist, Sakke Soini’s, incredible online gallery (he does electronicats and unicorns exploding lightening, if you need more convincing, and has VJed for the likes of Fred Falke, The Toxic Avenger, Anoraak and Moulinex). Cinca commissioned Soini to do the 1 EP’s cover art (above), which was amusingly plagarised on Courtney Love’s Myspace page recently, and you can read Cinca’s account of it here, and Love’s apology here.

But if all of that is simply too much exploration, just download two tracks from the EP below. That Outputmessage remix is amazing.

Triobelisk – Shield Your Eyes

Triobelisk – Shield Your Eyes (Outputmessage Remix)

More Triobelisk tracks and remixes here.

Bonus Christmas remix:

Stina Stjern – The Star Looks Even Brighter (Give Me Xmas Time Triobelisk remix)

- bec

For those of us still missing the easy-on-the-ears melodic rock of the infuriatingly likable Phoenix, the Rouen-based Tahiti 80’s newest album, Activity Center, might just be a godsend, especially since Phoenix’s most recently (unofficially) released track, Twenty-One One Zero, turned out to be so, umm, unPhoenix-like. But isn’t that a rather lazy comparison, because they’re both a bunch of French dudes who lyricise in English and produce that lovely soft garage sound which is so accessible your mum will hear it in David Jones one time and resolve to Google it when she gets home, or similarly make a blind kitten smile to itself despite the fact that it instinctively knows it will face great difficulties surviving past the age of eleven months, I hear you ask? Probably. Who else do they sound like then? I don’t know, stop asking so many questions! Get out of my house!

They might have been releasing material since 1996, but Tahiti 80 seem to have made a career out of flying under the radar, but then, when you’re as big in Japan as they appear to be, the rest doesn’t really matter anyway. Accordingly, they released Activity Center in Japan on the 10th of September, followed by the French release on the 22nd via Universal/Atmosphériques. Visit their official site, or Myspace page, to pick up a copy.

Tahiti 80 – Brazil

Tahiti 80 – Tune In

And they might be old, but they didn’t receive nearly enough attention the first time round:

Tahiti 80 – All Around (Yuksek Remix)

Simian Mobile Disco – Here Comes (Tahiti 80 Remix)

- bec

Two secretive producers from Belgium, they call themselves Low Motion Disco, and a more descriptive name it would be hard to think of. As they put it:

We tend to be the strange kind of party visitors. The ones that would rather stand around and watch people dance than dance themselves. It‘s not a voyeur thing, it comes from being slightly shy and unsporty. Never the less we want to be part of the party. Therefore we have developed a way to dance while not moving. We do it standing at a bar, or sitting on a sofa, in a car, wherever. While doing this, we groove and shake like hell, it just doesn‘t show on the outside. This technique is the basis of all we do. We call it low motion disco

A tad pretentious as it may be, I’ve just listened to ‘East Mountain Low’ for the eighth time end to end, and I haven’t even started writing yet. It’s… captivating. And sure, I’ll admit I’m a few beers down right now. And perhaps I’m hitting that point where you’re not necessarily morose but you do feel as if you’re slightly more attuned to the vicissitudes of the world. But it’s still wonderful. It still speaks to me… Or something like that… Not that this is depressing fare – I’ve been listening to the song almost non-stop since Friday – but there’s something wonderfully undemanding about the emotional tenor of the track, like it’s a loose clay onto which you can paste the wanderings of your mind; the euphoria, the depression, the middling contemplation. It kinda puts me in mind of Sébastien Tellier’s consummate ‘La Ritournelle’… which is probably an apt comparison considering he’s already done a remix for LMD of ‘Things Are Gonna Get Easier’, which you can still catch over at Have Fun Club. Awesome.

But man, ‘East Mountain Low’. The song starts with absent minded percussion, setting up a loose groove for the song to roll onto. Forty seconds in and the melody arrives, a set of nostalgia-ridden, counterpointed synth and guitar lines framed by what seems to be beautifully strangulated vocal samples. Then, over halfway through, the vocal proper arrives, providing the song with a brief and uncertain climax, before everything fades away again, tapering off to the same plucked guitar sample that began it all. The circular shape of the song makes for very easy repetition, I assure you. The entire album (Keep It Slow) is gorgeous, but ‘East Mountain Low’ stands out amongst the rest, a gently rolling swirl of warmth and safety. I picked it up randomly a few days back from the venerable Motel de Moka, nestled in amidst a playlist for tropical rainstorms. That seems apt, in an odd way.

Low Motion Disco – East Mountain Low

And just to prove that Aeroplane can do no wrong (ditto 20 Jazz Funk Greats, from whence I plucked this track), here’s their remix of LMD’s previous single ‘Love Love Love’. It’s exactly what you’d hope for from Aeroplane: laconic, emotive disco house that makes you think everything’s chilled out, when all of a sudden halfway through you find yourself glancing around the room and wondering where the hell this funk behemoth came from. I swear Aeroplane is almost single handedly convincing me of the merits of new disco. So cool.

Low Motion Disco – Love Love Love (Aeroplane Remix)

You can keep up to date with the Low Motion Disco boys over at their semi-regularly updated blog, but in the meantime make sure to hunt down the amazing ‘Keep it Slow’ LP – out now through Eskimo Records – and find yourself a new autumnal, mid-afternoon funk friend.

More BNGRZZZZ!!!1! soon. Maybe.

-luke

Wow, it’s like the second coming of Cajun Dance Party. Again a London-based quintet with an obligatory token girl member, only this time around they’ve managed to graduate from highschool… Although on closer inspection it appears as if this second coming of Cajun Dance Party actually released their debut single before the first coming did, and in fact, they probably arrived far earlier than CDP altogether, but for whatever reason I completely missed it, and am only just discovering them now. So I guess that means they’re back to being plain old Captain then. Who, by the way, are my latest obsession.

They’ve been circulating a six-track sampler of their upcoming sophomore album, Distraction, and I’ve become fairly addicted to it. Captain’s sound, described on some blog somewhere as, “obscenely catchy,” comes out very nicely in one of the feature tracks, Safe Harbour, which pretty much haunts my dreams with its tenacious hooks. Apparently the release of Distraction has been pushed back from early-August to the 15th September by EMI, who seem fairly disinterested in promoting it thus far, because, shit, why waste your time on Captain when you have Katy Perry (and Chingy)?

Captain – Safe Harbour

The lead single from Distraction, Keep An Open Mind, was released earlier this year, and it apparently withered and died the moment Topshop decided to adopt it. But seeing as there is very little Topshop in my life, it’s yet to wither and die in the chambers of my unashamedly-catchy-indie/pop-adoring heart, so here it is:

Captain – Keep An Open Mind

You can download another track, Animal, free from their Myspace page now.

- bec

So my student loan repayments kicked in yesterday, and being as unexpectedly and catastrophically high as they are, they have me well and truly by the proverbials. (Although let it be said for the record that I don’t actually have any proverbials, mainly because I’m a girl, and not a very tough/proverbialsy one at that.) So no going out for me this weekend (sorry Elle), which is a reality made all the more tragic by just how much this track makes me want to.

UK’s Edwin Van Cleef (*cough* nerd! *cough*) just sent us All I Have to Offer, and it’s one brilliantly blip-laced dancey frolic through the cosmos. He’s got some remixes (heartsrevolution and Foals) and older tracks floating around, so check out Hype Machine for those, and be sure to visit him at his Myspace page while you’re downloading.

Edwin Van Cleef – All I Have to Offer

- bec

I always get slightly nervous when I come to write about an artist such as UK’s Tim Simenon, who maintains the lofty status of one of electronic music’s great figureheads. In this case it all seems particularly out of my depth seeing as the dude contributed significantly to the rise of what NME coined, “DJ culture,” in their 1987 issue which featured Simenon on the cover with that incessant yellow smiley face, which Simenon inadvertently introduced into the rave and acid house scenes only to watch it explode into an icon in a mere moment. (All the while I was three and quite possibly scouting for lizards in my backyard.) Since then Simenon has produced and remixed material from the likes of Bowie, U2, Depeche Mode and Massive Attack, which has of course rendered him some sort of a legend, so I’ll probably accidentally write something completely wrong about him and get yelled at by some Simenon tragic, but persevere we must.

It’s been twenty-one years since the London-born Simenon released his debut single, Beat Dis, under the Bomb the Bass title, and thirteen years since his last record, Clear. During that thirteen year gap, he created his new album, Future Chaos, scrapped the entire thing, only to make it again, but this time using just a Minimoog synth, laptop and microphone set up in the kitchen of good friend and former A.P.E., Paul Conboy, Simenon intriguingly asserting, “…If there could possibly be a thing as electronica unplugged, then Future Chaos might be it.”

Future Chaos has been quietly approaching its September 15th release ever since, this refreshing lack of fanfare feeling entirely appropriate, the record picking up where Clear left off with its darker, more subtle sound and decidedly unrave-like aesthetic. If the life-blood of early Bomb the Bass was perfectly executed sample gathering and layering, with Future Chaos it’s the Minimoog, which helped to create the combination of what Simenon describes simply as, “drums, bass, some tones and some voices.”

And oh yes, the voices. With a career as rich in big-name collaborations as Simenon’s, including Sinead O’Connor, Bjork, and Neneh Cherry, he is unlikely to find himself lacking in options for a guest vocalist or two. So for Future Chaos we see appearances from Fujiya & Miyagi’s David Best, Jon Spencer, Toob, Conboy, and a particularly gorgeous effort by former Queens of the Stoneage vocalist/guitarsman, Mark Lanegan, which you can sample below.

You can head over to the Bomb the Bass Myspace page to hear more of the tracks from the album, and you can pick up a copy in September via !K7 Records.

Bomb The Bass – Black River (Ft. Mark Lanegan)

- bec

What would you get if you extracted key members from math rock mega-group, Hella, gave their high-profile drummer the conductor’s baton and let him flesh out his ultimate musical fantasies with the likes of Primus’ Les Claypool; the Advantage’s Robbie Moncrief; Deftones/Team Sleep’s Chino Moreno; and The Smell royalty, No Age? If your answer was, “Fuck. A whole lot of noise?” then you’re on the right track. Throw in The Flying Luttenbachers’s, Jonathan Hicshke; !!!/LCD Soundsystem’s Tyler Pope; the phenomenal Marnie Stern, and more, and you’ve got the makings of something truly and absolutely fascinating, Pitchfork calling it, “the best band ever (maybe an exaggeration but not a joke).”

This is what the aforementioned Hella co-founder and drummer, Zach Hill, managed to facilitate in creating his debut solo LP, Astrological Straits. Widely identified as one of the most innovative drummers of modern music with the rabbit-footed ability to work a room like three drummers in one, his prolific output of records with countless bands and collaborations since the late ’nineties have lead some to declare him more than just a single artist: Hill’s been branded a one-man genre. It was with this colossal level of experience and expertise that Hill came to produce the formidable Astrological Straits, a swirling mash of jittery math rock and shamelessly unrelenting noise beneath a wave of alien-like vocals that impart some kind of warped whimsy amongst such heady, erratic commotion. For Hill, those unapologetically off-kilter beats and rhythms are a necessity, perfection rendering itself, “meaningless when we’re talking about expressing honest human energy.” So if you like your music to be for the most part in-time, you’ll need look elsewhere (and then we can all snicker at your obtuse lack of sensitivity as you leave, you cretinous Neanderthal, you).

Astrological Straits is being released on August 12th via Ipecac Recordings and Anticon.

Zach Hill – Dark Art

Zack Hill – Momentum

- bec

In the all too predictable world of electro and dance, there are people who restore my faith in progress. Preston is one, he is dark, he is mysterious and he certainly has talent. He is a one man band singing and producing under the guise Preston Park. When i first stumbled across his music via his myspace(imagine that!) i was enthralled by the music and his flashing background. At the start of his tracks its as if your frozen in an icicle and Preston slowly sings you out of it. They start moody and cold and become warmer as they progress, all the while Preston sings along, with or without the aliens.

He makes similar music to Mickey Moonlight which Ned was kind enough to bring to our attention last week. A tad darker not entirely made out for clubs, this man needs his own show. I love the alien voices sprinkled throughout GOLDEN.

preston-park_-however
preston-park_-the-thrill