Random album review #5

The Japanese Popstars - We Just Are

I'll level with you - We Just Are is a great album, but I'm boring myself trying to write about it. For an electro house long player, it's good - REALLY good. All the songs are nothing less than banging, and it's full of thumping bass, euphoric build ups and slamming drops. But still it bores me a bit. I think the problem is that it's very four-on-the-floor head nodding music, which when listened to in a bedroom environment has a fairly short shelf life in just one listening session. I'm sure that if I was listening to it via one of The Japanese Popstars' live shows (which are highly rated and widely acclaimed - they're touring at the moment so I hope to catch them soon) then I would be doing nothing but gushing praise for We Just Are, but as it is (I'm currently sitting in my room hunched over my computer, it's a fairly grey day outside) the euphoric build ups are soaring by rather under-appreciated. All of the tunes on the album are obviously designed to have you reaching for the lasers rather than for a cup of tea, and while I can easily appreciate that each of the tracks are finely crafted pieces of dance music they just don't fully inspire when simply listened to on the CD, and really need to be experienced in a club environment. So my recommendation would be: aim to see The Japanese Popstars live, then the album will probably take on a whole new feel afterwards. A similar thing happened to me with Digitalism a few years ago; tracks like Pogo and Jupiter Room had intoxicated my brain with German electro goodness, but I'd been fairly cool on the rest of their album Idealism until I saw them live at Reading 07, a highly spiritual experience that made me enjoy the record a lot more from then on as listening to each track evoked the buzz of the live performance. That's how I see We Just Are: bit boring in mp3 form, probably very WOW live. Check out their tour dates, if they're playing near you then I'd definitely recommend trying to catch them live: http://www.myspace.com/thejapanesepopstars

Seeing as I've dealt with We Just Are fairly quickly, I'll tag on a proposal of what you should be pumping out your stereo's speakers instead. Bassline has for a long time been an object of scorn in my eyes, for two key reasons: 1) I don't carry a flick-knife, and 2) I don't own a modified Citroen Saxo. If you catch my drift. Despite spending a considerable amount of time in the bassline capital of the world, Sheffield, I've never felt the urge to attend any Niche nights, generally because my finest stab-proof vest coincidentally always seems to be in the wash when they're on. Shame. Instead I've tended to plump for the watered-down version of bassline, wonky fidget house, as pioneered by the likes of Jack Beats, Martelo, and various other inhabitants of Hervé's Cheap Thrills imprint and beyond. They make music that's acceptable for the middle-class young adults of Great Britain to bounce around the room like chimps to, safe in the knowledge that they can flail along to the wobbling basslines as much as they like without fearing to meet the eye of anyone else in the room.

I still wouldn't be first in line at a bassline or speed garage night, but my opinion of the music itself has rocketed in the space of the past day. This is because for once, I actually listened to some bassline. Proper bassline, courtesy of Rinse 05, mixed by Paleface. All of the Rinse series is great, and as this particular mix was actually released in the middle of 2008 I probably shudda trusted the Rinsers and acquired this record sooner, but it was just that tag stopping me: bassline. I already had Ministry of Sound's The Sound of Bassline compilation, but had never been fully captivated by some of the rather cheesy pop stuff on there (it's got the likes of What's It Gonna Be and Heartbroken on it). I was drawn to the Rinse 05 mix, however, because I'd been noticing Paleface cropping up quite a bit in association with the "UK Funky" scene (he's one of the cousinz in Crazy Cousinz - see Songs I'm Currently Loving), and felt a bit of bassline might shake me from my We Just Are-induced stupor (that's a wee bit mean, it really is a good album). Upon listening to the Rinse mix, I noticed something:

IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD!!!

Paleface rinses (ahem) no less than 40 tracks in the space of just under 80 minutes, showcasing some wonderful skittering beats and bouncing bass, as well as elements of grime and R&B (the suitably underground-sounding stuff, no Heartbroken here), which leave you wanting to do nothing more than dance around wearing a monkey suit on a trampoline for 72 hours straight, fuelled by gallons of Red Bull (that's the strongest stimulate they do at bassline nights, right?). Paleface's mix also incorporates much of the tribal afrobeat reminiscent of UK Funky that had lured me in in the first place, and with each track tending to get no more than a minute and a half blast before the next tune begins it's wobbling bass onslaught, this mix really keeps you bopping your head, shoulders, knees and toes. I've reached the conclusion that bassline is probably the most fun music genre out there - although I don't think I'll be rushing down to Sheffield's (newly reopened) Niche club to share my findings with the other clientele any time soon.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Having given We Just Are fairly short shrift and established that bassline is the greatest thing in the world, all that's left to do now is sit back and let the otherworldly powers of the iTunes shuffle function select the next random album to be reviewed. Fingers crossed, eh?

.........

Oh Christ on a bike. I've listened to this album pretty much not at all, this is gonna be tough.

JEGA - VARIANCE

We're talking ambient IDM electroscapes here people, a bit Boards of Canada/Boxcutter-esque. I think. Like I said, I haven't really listened to it, so I'm basing these descriptions on the brief snippets of the tracks that I'm scrabbling through now. I'm not really sure why I have this album to be honest, I've really not paid it much attention at all, ever. Oh well, I'm sure it's good. It sounds like it could be good.

Here's a sampler:

Jega - Soulflute

(It took ages on this shitty internet connection to upload the 'songs I'm currently loving' to mediafire and I can't be arsed to now upload the actual soulflute mp3, and you're just gonna have to learn to live with that)

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

• Les Gillettes - Pompeii - Erol-approved slice of infectious electro house, sure to be heard on many a dancefloor in the coming months
• Paleface & Kyla - Do You Mind (Crazy Cousinz Remix) - I'm rather reluctant to use the term 'UK Funky' for this upcoming musical style as it's biologically impossible for a white person to use the word 'funky' in any situation and emerge with any shred of coolness, but this is a tuuuuune *makes 'T' sign with hands*
• Army of the Pharaohs - Dump The Clip - Old-Skool East Coast hip-hop gem
• Fuckpony - Orgasm On The Dancefloor Saturday - I find it beyond comprehension that anyone could look at the combination of words in this artist/track's name and not think "YES. THIS IS WHAT I NEED".
• Bibio - Sugarette (Wax Stag Remix) - The Hardcore and The Gentle favourite Bibio released a follow up to the excellent Ambivalence Avenue the other week, including a few new songs and remixes of tracks from AA. Guess what? Yeh, that's right. This track's one of 'em.
• Pom Pom - Untitled 06 - It seems to be the case in the electronic music world these days that the zanier the name, the more brilliant it is. All of the tracks on Pom Pom's album are untitled, and they're all wicked.
• Jogger - Nephicide - Jogger's debut album This Great Pressure was released last week, and as Alan Hansen might say, it's pretty tasty. This track is completely bonkers, and sounds like what I'd imagine Deftones, Squarepusher and Fionn Regan having an orgy would sound like, with Daedelus videotaping. Which of course is a good thing. And I checked - 'nephicide' doesn't mean murdering your nephew. You know you were thinking it too.

Now it's time to hand out The Hardcore and The Gentle's 'Props of the Week' awards, with props this time going to Monsieur Jack Opus for the heads up on Sbtrkt, and Turnado for the low-down on Chainsaw Calligraphy during Gaslamp Killer's set at Thrasher the other weekend.

• TJR - Just Gets Better (Sbtrkt Remix)
• 16Bit - Chainsaw Calligraphy - This song throws you over it's knee and proceeds to spank the living daylights out of you, ignoring your squeals and squirming and telling you to "take it like a bitch". Or, at least, that's how it seems to me. And I bloody love it.

wonkyandglitchy (or, Let's Not Get Ravey)

Just earlier today I booked myself a ticket for the juicy-looking Thrasher night at the Warehouse Project in October. Now, due I think to having lived a year in Sheffield, I've become somewhat immunized to the attraction of dubstep; so, following an instant widening at the sight of Modeselektor live topping the bill, my eyes slumped back in to a lazy and rather indifferent shape when the likes of Skream, Benga, Caspa and Rusko appeared on the list. I'd guesstimate that each of those DJs has appeared at least 3 times each in the space of the last 9 months or so in the Steely City, thus rendering them a bit boring and stale in my eyes. Even the presence of the likes of Joker and Mary Anne Hobbs wouldn't be enough to make me scuttle over to Manc with a £17.50 + booking fees-shaped hole in my pocket, although it would undoubtedly be a fine night nonetheless. The names that really caught my eye (just realised that's already the third use of 'my eye' there, sorry) on the line-up were the non-English contingent, largely in the second room:

Daedelus - The Gaslamp Killer - Rustie - Dam Funk - Nosaj Thing

Unfortunately, this is where this blog posts starts to wobble and stumble somewhat, as if it had just downed two bottles of Lambrini and was now beginning to make it's way down a Middlesborough high street on a Friday night. The issue here is that while I feel fairly safe in labelling the produce of messrs Skream, Benga and Caspa etc as 'dubstep', I don't really know what genre of music the DJs above would fall in to. Fortunately for me, I've checked, and no-one else seems to know either. Depending on where you look, you'll find their musical efforts labelled 'glitch-hop', 'lazer bass', 'wonky', 'instrumental hip-hop', or 'aquacrunk' if you're Rustie (and which is my personal favourite). A mighty good introduction to the world of glitchylazercrunkstep is through Alexander Nut's Rinse 08 CD, which mixes off-beat hip-hop, off-beat dubstep, and off-beat policemen together to ear-pleasing effect.

I'm finding it hard to think of things to say about the American producers without falling in to the trap of speaking like Tim Westwood - phrases such as "the West Coast is where it's at", "there are some dope beats coming outta Cali right now", and "LA is totally killing it, yo" all temptingly spring to mind, but alas haven't been acceptable for use by a white middle-class English boy since, well, Westwood was a kid. A number of the big-hitters in the West Coast scene are represented in the Thrasher line-up, offering up relatively rare UK performances from Daedelus, Nosaj Thing, The Gaslamp Killer and Dam Funk (or Dâm-Funk, as several Last.fm users will earnestly insist). GLK, who holds a residency at glitch-hop mecca Low End Theory club in LA, takes influences from hip-hop and jazz, adds some bass and off-beat beats here and there, then squeezes the resulting concoction through a psychedelic sieve before capping the whole thing off with a wild and rather grand beard. Dam Funk's music has obvious roots in hip-hop, and Dam can this guy Funk. His tunes are filled with irresistible bass lines and drum kicks, often accompanied by funk-packed synths floating along on top, which make head-bopping and foot-tapping almost reflex actions when listening. His could well make for the most fun set at Thrasher!

The Gaslamp Killer - Turk Mex

Dam Funk - Hood Pass Intact

Cubic Zirconia - Fuck Work (Dam Funk Remix)

From previous experience, the main challenger for the accolade of most enjoyable set will be Daedelus. Having completely lost all recollection of his set at Sheffield's Tuesday Club earlier this year due to having drunk my way through two bottles of white wine that had been taped to my hands earlier in the evening, I was distraught to hear that the Californian - with his trademark lamp-chop sideburns and ye olde garb, looking for all the world like he should be presiding over a Victorian court-room - presided over one of the best sets to have graced Tuesday Club in all it's many years. Fortunately for Muggins McPhee, aka Me, fate was to deliver Alfred Darlington, aka Daedelus, in to my grasps (pretty literally) within a matter of days, as a group of Sheffield's finest took our shape-pulling over to a night in Manchester, where he happened to be playing again. Having spotted, and duly accosted, him in the venue prior to his set, I released the chap from the clutches of my loving embrace and earnest jibberish for him to deliver a truly mega performance. Here I must point out that Daedelus is probably one of the most aptly named DJs there is - a bit of wikipedia research reveals that, in Greek mythology, Daedalus means "cunning worker", who was a "craftsman so skilful that he was said to have invented images that seemed to move about". He was also "the creator of a wide dancing-ground", something his similarly spelt modern namesake definitely manufactured in Manchester. Using a big white box (sorry if that's too technical, it's name is a Monome) instead of traditional turntables, he conjured up a storming set, and was successfully beckoned back to the stage by the howls of the crowd for an encore. Definitely worth trying to catch him live, he should tear up the Warehouse Project and is also returning to Tuesday Club on October 27th.

Flying Lotus - 1983 (Daedelus Odd-Dance Party Remix)

AIN'T NOSAJ THING AS HALFWAY CROOKS.... is a dodgy, tenuous, and ultimately pointless way of introducing this next fella. The tunes of Nosaj Thing would, probably, be the most likely out of the four Yanks featured here to be mixed in to a dubstep mix, given his fairly minimal style, throbbing basslines and dubsteppy drum patterns on a number of tunes. Nosaj Thing, however, is not dubstep. What he does is takes hip-hop beats, strips them down, adds some glitches and perhaps some extra drum kicks before applying a coating of ambience, resulting in music that can be enjoyed both in the comfort of your armchair, as well as in a club environment. Listening to superb recently released debut album Drift is a highly satisfying experience and leaves me with a sense of enormous well-being, as Phil Daniels doth say in 'Parklife'. I'm imagining his live set to be quite an uplifting and euphoric affair, which is obviously setting myself up massive disappointment but I have faith that Nosaj won't let me down.

Jogger - Nice Tights (Nosaj Thing Remix)

Now on to a bitta British. Rustie hails from Glasgow and, unlike his name, is anything but an iron oxide corrosion formed on iron and its alloys (we'll pause for a second to let all you chemists out there catch your breath and sew your split sides back up). As could be expected from a resident of the United Kingdom, many of his productions are more obviously dubstep-based, but with a very generous amount of glitch sprinkled on top. Often sounding more like he's playing on a Snes rather than any kind of musical instrument, his tunes are filled with beeps, lazers and squelchs laid on top of rasping and irregular bass.

Rustie - Zig-Zag (Reprise)

While we're back in Blighty, here's a few other producers who I'm mighty sweet on at the moment. Zomby is an intriguing character - having released an album harking back to the days of early '90s rave, he has since tended to pursue his usual line of slightly eery 8-bit dubstep, which will often have your head nodding at a more rapid rate than many other dubstep records. From my investigations over the past months you stand a better chance of catching him at a club if you happen to dwell in some corner of the world other than England - he was even originally on the bill for a Wax:On event in Leeds I was attending earlier this year, but mysteriously vanished off the line-up a couple of weeks before it took place. Still, he continues to make some damn fine tracks. And lo and behold, here's one such track:

Zomby - Digital Fauna

Now to two very exciting up-and-coming London producers: Floating Points and Mount Kimbie. Although not many of his tracks are around right now, Floating Points is fast becoming my favourite producer at the moment. He creates well-layered tunes that flit between ambient chilled-out melodies and body-moving beats. Like an English Nosaj Thing, his music can be enjoyed at home or at a club in equal measures. Well worth watching out for me thinks. Mount Kimbie are also purveyors of ambient/up-tempo sounds, and may well draw comparisons to Burial due to an emotional presence in their tracks. In terms of beats and tempo they're more similar to the likes of Martyn or Starkey, and if a combination of Martyn and Burial is ever considered a bad thing then you know the world will have gone truly bonkers. They've released two excellent EPs so far, Maybes and most recently Sketch on Glass, and look to have a promising future. Don't be surprised if their debut album follows in Burial's footsteps and bags a cheeky Mercury Prize nomination itself, whenever it may be released.

Floating Points - J&W Beat

Mount Kimbie - 50 Mile View

And thus concludes this post on the glitch and the wonk that's rearing it's head at the moment in the world of musique electronique. However, not to forget one of the greatest influences in this Brave New Genre, to round off here's a couple of tracks by the master of the art, Flying Lotus:

FLYamSAM (Flying Lotus & SamiYam) - The Offbeat

Flying Lotus - Promiscuous (Remix of Nelly Furtado)

BONUS TRACK: Free The Robots - The Bearded Lady Theme (HIGHLY enjoyable)