Special thanks to my good friends at Champion City Records for today's shout out, putting more pressure on me to post regularly. Luckily, I've been itching to share this disco gem for a while now:



Number One Ensemble - Back To Heaven

The bassline on this track is incredible, as are the strings, and the chorus... This could be aural perfection circa-1979, yet somehow this LP remains very hard to find. If anyone can find a link to the full album, I'd greatly appreciate it. For the time being I'm happy to listen to this track over and over and over...

I'm of the belief that Untold can do no wrong (besides that Ed Hardy shirt in his Myspace picture). Proof:

Untold - Just For You

Untold - Anaconda

He's also got a new EP coming out this autumn, previews over at his Myspace.

Emeralds

There are two bands called "Emeralds" from the state of Ohio alone. The first, if you dare to listen, list AC/DC and Cheap Trick as top MySpace friends. The other Emeralds, more down my alley, are a synth and guitar trio who have released more than 40 LP's, cassettes, CD-R's, and CD's in only four years. This year's What Happened falls somewhere between the realms of Popol Vuh, Beaches & Canyons-era Black Dice, and Growing; that means it's melodic, drony, weird, and really beautiful.

Emeralds - Disappearing Ink (from What Happened, 2009)

Woods

Prolific Brooklyn duo Woods have just released another album of psych jams and lo-fi pop on their attention-grabbing Woodsist label (home to releases by Wavves, Blank Dogs, Kurt Vile, Vivian Girls...). The formula is much the same as their three previous full-lengths, although it sounds like they've started to clean up the production a little bit. Here's a little chronology:

Woods - Holes (from How To Survive In/In The Woods, 2006)

Woods - Don't Pass On Me (from At Rear House, 2007)

Woods - Twisted Tongue (from Woods Family Creeps, 2008)

Woods - The Number (from Songs of Shame, 2009)

New Grouper Track

Portland, Oregon native Grouper (Liz Harris) has been putting out excellent tracks for several years now, and her newest piece of recorded material maintains this level of high quality. "Rising Height" comes from a split 7" released to coincide with her recent tour of New Zealand alongside Pumice. It was released on Soft Abuse Records.

Grouper - Rising Height

A bunch of shit I like

Economic speed-ups (in this case my new job) mean blogging slow downs, unfortunately. Still, a couple awesome links of note:

If you've never been to the Donnaslut blog, prepare to be amazed how much time you can waste on it. My incredible discovery of the day was definitely Poopee & The NY Squirrels (a Google search inquired "Did you mean: pee pee & the ny squirrels ") wacky piece of mutant disco Bust That Nut.

Calgary's Azeda Booth have shared their new EP for free on their website. Guilt-free downloads may be made here: http://www.azedabooth.com/ep/

I feel as though I should at least add some other content to this post, so, rediscovered from my Youtube favorites list, a lovely Chromatics tune:

This Week's Much-Hyped Band From Brooklyn Is...

Without a doubt devoted followers of the blogosphere have heard at least one track from Telepathe's new album, Dance Mother, released in January in the UK. North Americans will have to wait until April to pick up a physical copy of the bands debut LP, but we've already been treated to various 7"s, EP's, remixes, and for the privateers, the leaked version of the UK release. Oh yeah, did I mention TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek produced the album? Sweet.

It's hard to choose a favorite track, but I've been enjoying "Lights Go Down" recently, mainly because of the drum machines and Arabian theme:

Telepathe - Lights Go Down

Also found some nice remixes of "Chromes On It" by Mad Decent, The Mae Shi, and Frankmusik:

Telepathe - Chromes On It (Mad Decent Remix)

Telepathe - Chromes On It (The Mae Shi Remix)

Telepathe - Chromes On It (Frankmusik Remix)

dub-step-funk-rock

Having finally come into possession of the new Hyperdub 12", I felt an urge to share this gem. Typical of Hyperdub, it's awesome, and features the always solid Joker on the A-side, and the previously unknown to me Danish duo 2000F on the flip-side.

Joker - Digidesign
- This track has been on a ton of mixes as of late. 2009 looks to be a good year for my favorite Bristol producer.

2000F & J Kamata - You Don't Know What Love Is
- Holy shit! this sounds like Zapp & Roger with 21st century drum programming. Cheesy, vocodered dubstep slow jams are the future.

Experimental pianomusic

I've decided for a change of pace today, seeing as we're getting a decent snowfall for the first time in ages. An appropriate time to bring up the new EP by German prepared pianist Hauschka.


















Entitled "Snowflakes And Carwrecks," this might be an EP in the most liberal sense of the term, as it clocks in at about 40 minutes. Modern Classical in the vein of Rachel's, Sylvain Chauveau, and Max Richter (and maybe even Yann Tiersen), Hauschka aka. Volker Bertelmann, has been putting out a steady stream of releases of excellent quality since 2004. Snowflakes And Carwrecks acts well as an addendum to last year's Ferndorf LP, and was recorded during the same session with the same musicians as Ferndorf.

"Ginsterweg" from Snowflakes And Carwrecks (Fat Cat, 2009)

"Wonder" from Snowflakes And Carwrecks

"Heimat" from Ferndorf (130701, 2008)

Back To The Disco House

That was a big absence on my part, far more due to laziness than nothing to write about. New, interesting music is everywhere these days, trying to find one or two particular tracks to write about is always hard, but a couple recent listenings have totally blown me away.

These selections come from Tim Sweeney's Best of 2008 session on his excellent WNYU radio show Beats in Space. Sweeney, who runs with the DFA crowd out in NYC, always plays impeccable neo-disco grooves, so you can imagine how awesome his favorites must be.

First off, an Ibiza circa-1987 Balearic house remix of Dolle Jolle by Norwegian space disco king Todd Terje:

Dolle Jolle - Balearic Incarnation (Todd Terje's Extra Dolle remix)

Also catching my ear this particular program of Beats in Space was Erol Alkan's remix of Vancouver's all-girl-disco-duo, Fan Death:

Fan Death - Veronica's Veil (Erol Alkan's Extended Rework)

They sound a lot like Glass Candy, don't they? But the track's still a killer.

I definitely don't mind the glut of low-BPM dance music we're experiencing at the moment, much thanks to Tim Sweeney and DFA exposing a lot of people to the good aspects of disco, new and old. Oh, and on that note Edmonton:

DFA DISCO PARTY

Brap Brap

Woo, two posts this month! I'll try and increase my productivity soon with more free time coming up.

UK Grime's been having a big impact on my listening habits lately, much thanks to Wiley's recent output. First off, a display of his fantastic, yet nowadays underused MCing talents:



To me, Wiley's right up there at the top with Dizzee Rascal among fantastic grime MC's. Yet, much like Dizzee, he has a bizarre fascination with making pop music with very little MCing. Tracks like "Wearing My Rolex" and "If You're Going Out..." are tailored for the dancefloor, and don't give Wiley much chance to shine (asides from his excellent production skills). That being said, he can still make interesting pop music:


Wiley - If You're Going Out I'm Going Out Too from Grime Wave

I'm trying to figure where the beat comes from, or if it's original. In any case it reminds me a lot of "On" by Aphex Twin, which is an awesome track to be reminded of.

Right now you can hear Eskiboy rhyming on the Qemists' track "Dem Na Like Me," which, 22 days into January, is my single of the year so far, dancehall meets rock'n'roll destruction:


The Qemists feat. Wiley - Dem Na Like Me (Original Edit)

As a producer and an MC, Wiley's doing so many divergent and interesting things at the moment. 2008 was an awesome year for him, releasing See Clear Now and Grime Wave, and 2009 is shaping up to be just as rewarding, if that Qemists track is any indication.

(Click on the links below the track to download them.)

Peace,

Markus

Goth Kids Make Sweet Beats

Here I am again, this is my second attempt at a music blog, the last ended in tragedy back in 2007. Well, "tragedy" might be a bit of strong term, but there was very little music actually discussed on that blog. Now with 2 years of life experience behind me, I think it's time to open up this can of worms all over again. Let's start with depressing, drug-fueled electronic music from Chicago, Salem!















As anyone who has talked to me in the past month may know, I really dig this group. I've had difficulty describing them, but I inevitably think of Three 6 Mafia making an album with Slowdive, and everyone is really fucked up on codeine. Or it sounds like something Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) would make, if he was really fucked up on codeine. Drugs are obviously a key factor, so it seems fitting that their first EP was named Yes I Smoke Crack. "Redlights" and "Dirt" are the highlights of their first EP, while "Skullcrush" is a brand new track on their still available second EP, Water.

http://rapidshare.com/files/179577455/01_Redlights.mp3.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/179575290/04_Dirt.mp3.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/178926656/skullcrush.mp3

The excellent Fader magazine has some tracks on it's website as well: http://www.thefader.com/tag/salem

And of course, the requisite MySpace link: http://www.myspace.com/jjhhmm