Since 2005’s Dimmer, The Zincs have proven to be quite the shape-shifters. Moving from a spacious acoustic sound into darker, more unsettling power-pop, The Zincs sound like the bastard children of Joy Division and a loungier Pulp. All comparisons aside, Black Pompadour finds strength in intricate guitar work that shifts from classic-rock riffs to swelling surf leads. But given the album’s instrumental dynamics, James Elkington’s semi-monotone vocals don’t always match up with the songs. Regardless, The Zincs possess the fire of ’80s-era Rough Trade stars, worthy of much more than a passing glance.
Various Artists The Rough Guide to Bollywood Gold
To many unfamiliar with the complex forms of Indian music, Bollywood has been a happy entry point. Like American pop, filmi tunes (and the movies they are born from) are big business. Around the time Motown was mass-producing R&B superstars, the Indian film industry was stockpiling radios with sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, the extremely funky Mohd Rafi, and, true to the flexible nature of Indian culture, a yodeling saint of a singer named Kishore Kumar. This 15-track compilation is from the industry’s golden age (1960-’80). Rough, fuzzy, analog, and brilliant, these are the Marvins and Supremes of their day, in a style still going strong.
Thee More Shallows Book of Bad Breaks
Thee More Shallows is a San Franciscan trio that squeezes electronic and acoustic sounds into some fascinating songs. Book of Bad Breaks, like their last LP, More Deep Cuts, is both minimal and incredibly layered. “Night at the Knight School” and “Fly Paper” have moments of serenity followed by combustion, while “Eagle Rock” stands strong with quirky lyrics. Aside from “Mo Deeper” and “Chrome Caps,” where the droning sounds can grow tiresome, Book of Bad Breaks packs a punch for this band’s Anticon debut.
Tokyo Black Star Reincarnation
Alex From Tokyo and his partner Isao Kumano are back with another bomb, bound to be the first release on a brand new imprint founded by Enrico from Neroli and Italian fashionistas Slam Jam. “Reincarnation” is a deep, maddening, dubby house tune that brings us back to Chez Damier & Ron Trent’s Prescription Records. This track has such a hypnotic bassline and gimmicky synth stab. It’s reminiscent of the Detroit vs. Chicago sound and guarantees the dancefloor will be brought to exhaustion.
DEMF Lineup Announced
Ferndale, MI-based company Paxahau assumes promotion duties a second year in a row for Movement: Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival, the eighth annual techno-centric festival with an ever-changing name. It seems the unsure future of the festival, after swapping hands nearly every year since its inception, has finally been resolved.
The partial schedule for the city’s annual Memorial Day weekend freak-out has been released, so techno nerds can prepare to wipe their lower lips as the saliva flows. In addition to the impressive list of the genre’s main players, Booka Shade, Gui Boratto, Onur Ozer, and others will make their first appearances in Detroit.
The festival’s partial lineup currently includes Claude VonStroke, Damian Lazarus, Jeff Mills, Christian Smith, Mathew Jonson, Steve Bug, Monolake, Luciano, Stacey Pullen, Pole, Michael Mayer, Valdislav Delay, and dozens of others. Don’t forget the earplugs and bottled water.
Check in with the festival’s site for updates.
Now Playing at Peepshow: XLR8R TV Preview
Peepshow’s latest offering takes a snapshot look at our inaugural edition of XLR8R TV, hosted by Revision3.com. Ken Taylor chats with French laptop punks DAT Politics, we journey to the East Bay and into the studio with Zion I, and we get down with S.F. clubgoers for a slice of nightlife.
Cameron Octigan
Preview our first episode, exclusively at Peepshow.
JDH and Dave P Go Commando
Snag a copy of the latest compilation from New York’s Go Commando series, this time from JDH and Dave P, masterminds behind the city’s FIXED parties. Like James F!@#$%^ Friedman’s inaugural Go Commando comp, JDH and Dave P crank out a mix of house and techno bangers that will cause asses around the world to wiggle, with The Knife, Michael Mayer, Four Tet, and Vitalic making appearances. This marks the duo’s first-ever mix CD, and they top it off with a slew of FIXED parties around the country and several dates on the road with Soulwax.
Tracklisting
1. Joakim “I Wish You Were Gone”
2. In Flagranti “Genital Blue Room”
3. Prins Thomas “Fehrara
4. Serge Santiago “Atto D’Amore (Dub)”
5. Tronikhouse “Mental Techno”
6. Dirt Crew “Rok Da House”
7. The Knife “Silent Shout”
8. Ellen Allien & Apparat “Do Not Break”
9. Mr. Oizo “Halfanedit”
10. Tomboy “I Kill Guitar”
11. Rekid “Next Stop Chicago (Jesse Rose Remix)”
12. Gossip “Standing in the Way of Control (Soulwax Nite Version)”
13. Vitalic “Poney Pt. 1”
14. The Rapture “The Sound”
15. Four Tet “A Joy (Percee P Instrumental Part II)”
16. 120 Days “Come Out, Come Down, Fade out, Be Gone (Dave P & Adam Sparkles Remix)”
17. Like You (Supermayer Mix)”
Tour Dates
03/09 Philadelphia, PA: Pure
03/10 Brooklyn, NY: Studio B
03/15 Austin, TX: Factory People
03/23 Miami, FL: Studio A
03/31 Brooklyn, NY: Studio B
04/14 Philadelphia, PA: Transit*
04/16 Washington, DC: 9.30 Club*
04/17 New York, NY: Hiro Ballroom*
04/18 Brooklyn, NY: Studio B*
04/19 Montreal, QC: S.A.T.*
04/20 Toronto, ON: Opera House*
04/21 Chicago, IL: Metro*
04/27 San Francisco, CA: Mezzanine*
*With Soulwax
LCD Soundsystem In The Studio
Some might say that James Murphy leads two lives: frontman of the disco-friendly LCD Soundsystem, and mixmaster behind the DFA production duo, who has given everyone from The Rapture to Nine Inch Nails a flattering sonic facelift. But whether it’s making underground dance hits like “Losing My Edge” or brushing up Top 40 fare, it’s Murphy’s straight-ahead work ethic that keeps him sane–and one of the most in-demand producers and remixers in the game. Here he lets us in on the process of recording LCD Soundsystem’s sophomore disc, Sound of Silver.
XLR8R: Do you approach your recording sessions like a 9-to-5?
James Murphy: No, because my job changes so much. I’ll be on tour for a couple of years and that’ll be a full-time job, and then I’ll be focused on label stuff for a while, or remixes, or DJing. It goes through phases. Nothing’s ever routinized, which is really nice but really taxing. Though, when making [Sounds of Silver], we did the last 35 days straight, at about 10-14 hours a day. But it was pretty sane–I wasn’t, like, running around like a crazy person.
Do you bring in outside engineers for your LCD Soundsystem stuff?
No. When I went to the [Long View] Farm Studio in Massachusetts–for the first half of the work on the record–there’s an engineer there named Ian who’s there to interface with the house. But I don’t need an engineer. I’m a pretty full-blown engineer, but I always have a programmer/assistant, Eric [Broucek], who does all the DFA stuff. When Tim [Goldsworthy] and I are working, he assists us both.
What’s the most personal thing you’ve got in your studio?
I don’t really think in those terms with the studio… [but] I have a set of 1957 Gretsch jazz drums that are what we record everything with, and they sound astonishing. There’s just no way to tune them or mic them to make them sound bad, which makes drum recording much easier. And there’s an old Epiphone bass that I use that has no name, from the ’60s, that I’ve recorded everything with through an old Ampeg Portaflex B-15 flip-top bass amp. Basically bass is always the Epiphone into the Portaflex.
Was there a time when you were uncomfortable with recording your own vocals?
I’m still uncomfortable! There’s never been a time when I wasn’t uncomfortable. It’s horrifying. I kick everybody out, pretty much.
At the end of the first track, are those actually real strings?
I got a string quartet to arrange with, which I think was a very interesting experience for them. They try to get as much jammed in as they can, and they’re kinda [used to being] treated like animals to a certain degree. And my thing was like, “I want some strings on the record and I’m not sure what. I have to hear it and see what fits. So I don’t have anything prewritten and I’m gonna have to write things on the spot.” And they kinda looked at me like, “You know, we’re not jazz musicians. We don’t just, like, play. You have to really write stuff down.” We actually got into all this microtonal stuff, and it was really fun to work that stuff out on the piano and have to break it up into different voicings, because I’ve never done that… And I like waste–and that was a big waste.
How do the songs typically come together?
It really depends. Like, on “Get Innocuous,” obviously that beat that starts everything is what started the track. Originally that beat was just made out of a bunch of sounds from a Yamaha CS60; those are all just a series of kick drums with the synth, and making the snares and sampling them. I like making kinda wonky beat loops and programming them without a grid so that they feel more liquid and they’re much easier to play to. Grid-y things are really difficult to play to ’cause they don’t adjust for a sample being late in the attack. And I did stuff with the modular synth–I think it was probably the Moog Taurus being controlled with my Korg SQ10 modular sequencer–just doing a drum-machine-and-synth take and then going and playing drums live to it. I’m more intuitive than I am thoughtful. I prefer to go play and then when I’m bored playing something, it usually lines up with when it’s time to change.
Is it going to be hard to move from studio to stage with this record?
No, not at all. We’re a cover band when it’s time to go live. And we’re the best LCD cover band on the planet. So we’re just gonna go and try and figure out what that other band did in the studio, and see how it can be translated live without being too obsessive about it.
Swing Time
Ready for a new beat? With the alt-rock and club-techno scenes taking up the major share of music headlines these days it would be easy to overlook the abundance of nu-soul, future jazz, and broken beat music that’s arriving on record-store shelves and download sites. Three famous labels in particular, renowned for their consistency, don’t let our thirsty ears down with these full schedules of new releases.
Southern California’s Ubiquity, home to Triple-P, Greyboy, and Ohmega Watts, scored a major coup last fall with the release of critically acclaimed Danish duo Owusu & Hannibal’s Living With… album, which was hailed by Gilles Peterson and Rainer Trüby as a “winner.” 2007 sees the label continuing its run of must-grab full-lengths from acts like (no-longer-signed-to-Kanye’s-label) Sa-Ra Creative Partners (pictured), superfunk orchestra Connie Price and the Keystones, and one of L.A.’s most talked about bands, rocksteady-soul act The Lions. Ubiquity is constantly in motion (you can see how they got the name) with creative t-shirts, messenger bags, and accessories rounding out a consistent catalog of excellent recorded works.
Also firing on all cylinders, L.A.-based Quango Music has a full release schedule this spring and summer. The label brought smiles in 2006 with quality albums from boy-girl duo Bitter:Sweet, the dubby Danes Djosos Krost, and New Zealand stoners Fat Freddy’s Drop. This year sees Quango offer a reissue of Real To Reel by German dub artists Noiseshaper. This killer downtempo dub platter features production from UK legend Adrian Sherwood and guest vocals from Ari Up (The Slits), New Yorker G.Rizzo, and crooner Jahcoustix. Quango also furthers their “lifestyle music” agenda with crossover sounds by Gecko Turner, as well as disco funk from Kraak and Smaak.
And what’s life without Afro-Latin rhythms? Mr. Bongo Recordings answers this question with a new installment of its Brazilian Beats series and the work of experienced production duo Mitchell and Dewbury. Brazilian Beats Brooklyn highlights the favorite floor-fillers at Bem Vindo club night in New York. DJs Sean Marquand and Greg Caz select a whopping 22 tunes for your samba-ing pleasure.
Meanwhile, The Mitchell & Dewbury Band’s Beyond The Rains is out April 23, 2007 on Mr. Bongo. Ben Mitchell is a producer, remixer, and DJ who records as Sao Benitez, and has remixed Masters At Work, Seu Jorge, and Hammond organ legend Jimmy Smith. Russ Dewbury is the man responsible for Brighton’s world-famous Jazz Bops and is one of Britain’s leading antiquarians of black music. Mitchell and Dewbury gather a star-studded cast, including jazz-blues vocalist Terry Callier, Navasha Daya and James Collins of Baltimore soul-jazz outfit Fertile Ground, pianist Mark Edwards, and Nigerian saxophonist Bukky Leo to flavor their lively rhythms. This album should keep us sweaty through the summer months.
Tom Burbank Famous First Words
Famous First Words is a nice debut from Venice, California’s Tom Burbank, combining a little bit of Ninja Tune-esque, chopped-up ambient (think Pest or Super Numeri) with Merck-y hip-hop beats (along the lines of Machinedrum) and a healthy dash of Planet Mu-style computer glitch. At its best-the infectious dancehall bounce of “Blabber Mouth,” the whine of “Gnats,” and the boomin’ synths of “Knuckles”-the album is a slinky but chunky shuffle fest, perfect for either dancing or enthusiastic head-nodding. Occasionally it veers into easy-listening territory, but it’s a strong debut nonetheless.
