The UK’s disco-leaning indie-dance trio Friendly Fires was just called upon to deliver the latest installment of the ongoing Bugged Out! compilation series. Entitled Bugged Out! Presents Suck My Deck, the mix album contains 19 tracks from XLR8R-friendly names like Tom Trago, Tensnake, Lindstrøm & Christabelle, Redshape, and Bot’Ox, but what really caught our eye was the featured collaboration between the mixing three-piece and Toronto’s premiere house lovers, Azari & III (whom we recently profiled in our pages). The two outfits are credited with the tune “Stay Here,” and the Azari folks have a remix of Munk’s “La Musica” in the mix, as well. It’s good to see the boys in Friendly Fires have pretty great taste. You can check out the mix’s cover and tracklist before it’s released internationally on September 27 and October 12 in the US.
1. The Egyptian Lover – Freak-A-Holic 2. Bot’Ox – Bearded Lady Motorcycle Show 3. The Phenomenal Handclap Band – You’ll Disappear (Munk Remix) 4. Tom Trago – Lost In The Streets of NYC (Boris Werner Lost In Malta Remix) 5. Ryan Crosson – Metro Bunker (Original Mix) 6. Lindstrom & Christabelle – Baby Can’t Stop (Aeroplane Remix) 7. Rebotini – 777 (Discodeine Remix) 8. Tensnake – Coma Cat 9. Munk – La Musica (Azari & III Remix) 10. Friendly Fires and Azari & III – Stay Here 11. Redshape – Dog Day 12. The 2 Bears – Be Strong 13. Butch – No Worries 14. George Kranz – Din Daa Daa 15. Jody ‘Fingers’ Finch – Jack Your Big Booty (BHQ No Acid Vocal) 16. BDI – City & Industry 17. Alan Fitzpatrick – Green Light 18. Boo Williams – Mortal Trance 19. Round Two – New Day (Club Vocal Mix)
Chicago house legend Cajmere (a.k.a. Green Velvet a.k.a. Curtis Jones) is about to release a new remix album dedicated to his 1992 anthem, “Percolator.” He’s re-worked the song for 2010, and also enlisted an A-list team of producers to put their own spin on the classic tune, including Major Lazer, DJ Chuckie, Claude VonStroke, Riva Starr, Mixin Marc, Bad Boy Bill, and DJ Gantman. The album is scheduled to drop on August 30, but in the meantime, Cajmere’s unveiled this new video, which includes cameos from fellow Chicago artists Gantman and Kid Sister, along with some fancy dance moves from a slew of Chi-town footworkers and a fresh crop of breakdancing children. And yes, those kids sure are cute, but who the hell gave that one little guy the ultra-gelled faux-hawk?
We wouldn’t rush to say that “Asia”—the second song to drip off of Salem‘s much-anticipated debut album—is our favorite tune from the 11-track King Night, but if ever radio stations could be welcoming to such twisted amalgamations of goth, shoegaze, industrial, and rap music, the trio might find a good single here. And that’s primarily because the band’s oft-disturbing lyrical content is rendered completely indecipherable (so the FCC will leave them be), though, that’s bolstered heftily by the phantasmic synth melody, which somehow overpowers the song’s smash of distorted drum-machine beats to tip “Asia” further onto its ‘beautifully creepy’ side. We’re not imagining any Nine Inch Nails or Skinny Puppy scenarios here, but maybe, one day, Salem could eventually reclaim the misdirected angst of certain sub-cultures and turn it into something that transcends the stubbornness of contemporary pop culture. Here’s to dreams.
If an eponymous name change and ambitiously conceptual third album, Heartland, wasn’t enough to send you reeling, how about another Owen Pallett record? Ready or not, the four-song A Swedish Love Story EP will be released on September 28 via Domino. As Pallett describes it, “I recorded this EP in New York City over a week, using not much more than my violin, my Moog, a bass and a drum kit…[It’s] in tribute to one of my favourite films, En Karlekshistoria, and as a love letter to the Swedish pop stars who inspired it. This is probably the most posi record I’ll ever make, enjoy the mood while it lasts.” Pallett will also be setting off with fellow indie starlets The National and The Dirty Projectors on a tour of the US around the beginning of September. You can check those dates below, as well as the EP particulars.
1. A man with no ankles 2. Scandal at the parkade 3. Honour the dead, or else 4. Don’t stop
Sep 07 – Washington DC – 930 Club with Dirty Projectors Sep 08 – Philadelphia PA – Trocadero with Dirty Projectors Sep 11 – New York NY – Terminal 5 with Dirty Projectors Sep 13 – Boston MA – Wilbur Theatre with Dirty Projectors Sep 24 – Montclair NJ – Wellmont Theatre with The National Sep 25 – Pittsburgh PA – Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead with The National Sep 27 – Louisville KY – WL Lyons Brown Theatre with The National Sep 29 – Kansas City MO – Uptown Theater with The National Sep 30 – St Louis MO – The Pageant with The National Oct 02 – Indianapolis IN – Egyptian Room with The National Oct 04 – Raleigh NC – Raleigh Memorial Auditorium with The National Oct 05 – Atlanta GA – Fox Theatre with The National Oct 06 – Lake Buena Vista FL – House of Blues with The National Oct 08 – Houston TX – House of Blues with The National Oct 09 – Dallas TX – House of Blues with The National Oct 13 – Tucson AZ – Rialto Theatre with The National Oct 14 – Tempe AZ – Marquee Theatre with The National Oct 16 – Pomona CA – Fox Theatre with The National
Bay Area-based futuristic tunesmith Amon Tobin recently relaunched a special section on his website, the “Featured Artist” page, in which he “showcases artists he digs, inviting them to contribute content that is only available through amontobin.com.” For his most recent feature, Tobin snagged the talented Philly-reppin‘ DJ/producer Starkey (pictured above), who hooked up an exclusive three-song EP of bass-centric space beats called Universe. You can snag the EP for the price of an email address right here, and catch Tobin celebrating Ninja Tune’s 20th anniversary on a string of tour dates, which are listed below.
Sept 30 – Brussels BE @ AB Oct 1 – Paris FR @ La Machine Du Moulin Rouge Oct 2 – London UK @ Ewer St. Car Park Oct 28 – NYC @ Santos Oct 30 – Los Angeles CA @ Echoplex
This Robot Koch (pictured above) track, from the forthcoming Friends of Friends Volume 3, the latest edition of the label’s ongoing split-release series, may be called “Devil Drums,” but we think the remix by Alex B would be better off entitled “Satanic Synths.” Sure, the crushing ‘boom-blap’ of the Denver resident’s production is slightly sinister, but it’s that damned sawtooth-wave synth that we wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. The buzzing tone lumbers ominously through the song, even while the tempo gradually kicks things up a notch, and is constantly surrounded by a minion of plugin-addled noise from dimensions far more ghastly than our own. We’ll see how the track matches up next to the offerings from the EP’s co-pilot, Mexicans with Guns, along with other remixes from Salva, King Cannibal, Lunice, Mux Mool, and Free the Robots when the record comes out on October 5.
Zimbabwe-born Canadian Jason Amm has long been at the forefront of contemporary synth-pop. With his arsenal of vintage analog gear and drum machines, Amm has crafted four full-length albums under the name Solvent, which have continually explored new realms of electronic pop music over the course of 12 years. After releasing his latest for Ghostly International, Subject to Shift, Amm tells us about his unexpected birthplace, what appendage he’d sacrifice for his music gear, and how he hasn’t a clue as to what—gasp!—the Twilight series is…
What were you up to during the six years between Apples & Synthesizers and Subject to Shift? Well, I did actually release a fair amount of new music during that time, just not a Solvent album. That’s not to deny that there’s a big unproductive gap there! Mainly, I was busy being the stay-at-home parent to my five-year-old daughter, Iris. And add to that a couple of musical identity crises.
So… Canadian, but born in Zimbabwe, eh? That’s where my father was from. He met my mom in Canada and they moved back for a while and had me. It was called Rhodesia then. They left during the war that lead to the country becoming Zimbabwe. I’ve been in Canada since I was two or so.
If you were commissioned to score the new Twilight movie, which artist (dead or alive) would you like to collaborate with? I haven’t the faintest idea what Twilight is, except that it’s maybe some sort of teen vampire thing? So am I supposed to go for some kind of goth theme then? Well, I’d love to collaborate with Siouxsie Sioux under any circumstances, so let’s go with that.
Would you rather have all of your music gear destroyed or have two fingers surgically removed? Assuming you mean no insurance on the gear, definitely, I’d choose to have the fingers off.
Who is speaking on the phone recordings in “Unknown Caller,” from Subject to Shift? In the intro (“Hello?”) it’s me, while the stuff in the background is not a phone conversation at all, it’s an interview with Siouxsie and Budgie that I processed to sound like a phone recording. Weird that Siouxsie has come up twice in this interview! Maybe I had subliminally looked ahead and that made me think of her.
“My Radio”
What’s the worst thing you’ve heard your music called? “For all his major-key optimism, Solvent’s is an outlook with only a disheartening modicum of stability: a homogeny that, quite simply, gets by.” [Ed’s note: From a 2008 Pitchfork review.] That, and Italo Disco—which is not bad music, it’s just that it comes up pretty often, and I don’t get the connection at all.
If you were actually a solvent, which would you be? To answer this I’d actually have to know something about solvents, and I don’t. I just named myself after the Skinny Puppy song.
What’s the lamest thing about being a musician in Canada? It’s just a small market with very few cities to support a healthy music scene. I’ve only played seven cities in the whole country. If I could play shows in the US without having to go through the long, tedious, and expensive process of getting a work visa, I would have a lot less to complain about.
What’s the best? I’m an artist, and I have health insurance.
Name one man and one woman you wish you could sing like. Man: Gary Numan. Woman: Alison Moyet.
If you could have one of your songs live on as your legacy, which would it be? Well, “My Radio” is surely the best song I have written, and probably the best I ever will write. But for some sort of insight into me, something more personal, I’d choose “Duckie.”
Subject to Shift is out now on Ghostly International.
Two new Kore 2/Kore 2 Player instruments have officially dropped, each with its own unique premise. The first, Paranormal Spectrums (MSRP: $79), is designed to create dark, ominous sound aesthetics. It’s comprised of 100 sounds with eight distinct variations for each, meaning you’ve got 800 instantly usable starting points for getting your otherworldly freaky-deaky on. Deep Freq (MSRP: $79), alternatively, is the latest brainchild of sound designer Denis Gökdag, and was built as a frequency manipulator effect unit. By using combinations of filters, resonators, frequency shifting, re-synthesis, and more, it’s meant to help you alter and reshape the tonality of your beats, vocals, or any other audio.
With help from precocious experimental labels like Leaving Records and Non Projects, the nether regions of the Golden State are likely to be a hotbed for inventive musicians and producers for years to come. It seems that every time we turn around, something unique is coming to us from these folks—the latest of which is harpist/vocalist Ana Caravelle. Her forthcoming debut, Basic Climb, which was recorded at Alpha Pup don Daddy Kev‘s studio and produced by boyfriend Asura, will be released September 28 on Non Projects, but not before a handful of remixes from some beat scene kids drop. Here, we’ve got a mix from Shigeto, who gives Caravelle’s composition a crackling once over, and mixes in his own stuttered melodies and broken grooves while leaving much of the artist’s voice and harp plucks intact. The remix is an ideal marriage of live musicianship and electronic wizardry that works well in keeping both approaches interesting and fresh.
The poignant, synth-heavy pop coming from Brooklyn’s beloved Small Black is set to try itself out in album form when New Chain is released on October 26 via Bloomington, IN’s Jagjaguwar label. The full-length record follows a hotly tipped self-titled EP, a split EP with chillwave darling Washed Out, and a 7″ record for fan-favorite song “Despicable Dogs,” not to mention a few years of bandhood and some fondly remembered performances at CMJ and SXSW. New Chain was created while Small Black secluded themselves within suburban Delaware, so as to get away from the distractions of big-city life; the group returned home months later with 10 brand-new songs of dreamy, DIY electro-pop. More info and remixes will surely bubble to the surface in the coming months, but until then, you can check out the album cover and tracklist below.
