Disco Horror

I just couldn’t wait any longer to drop this mix on you.  The story goes like this:

Me and Erik were chillaxin on the DiscoHorror yacht a few months back smoking peyote when the heavens broke loose with a torrential thunderstorm that broke the yacht to pieces and left us washed up on an island beach somewhere in the Mediterranean.  But it was then that the clouds parted and the mighty dance god Thunderbeard appeared to us and he spoke in vocoded brilliance: YOU SHALL MAKE ME A MIX WORTHY OF THE BEARDS.  We quickly jotted the message down on our iPads and began to craft our raft by which to return to our records and begin crafting our mix for the gods.

And so we set to do as Thunderbeard requested and this is what came of it.

Ash & Erik – Thunderbeard Mix

Lately and less lately I’ve picked up and been given some awesome dance tunes that exist in the etherial realm of dark disco psychedelia. These are the songs I wish to share with you today.

First comes a long overdue posting of a track off of Pink Skull’s wonderful album Endless Bummer released by our best of friends at RVNG, released late last year. RVNG was kind enough to share the album with us. It’s a warped descent into experimental dance madness, a storm of synths, horns, and guitar over galloping drums that unravel into bizarre ambient psychedelic breakdowns. The album begs for second and third listens. I really, really dig this album and to my surprise it’s still available for sale on RVNG’s site! So pick that shit up already if you missed the boat! Here’s a taste but go go go get it if ya dig.

Pink Skull – Chicken Dream Inside Egg

Next comes a pounding beast from Precious System, a dude about whom I know jack. He has an assortment of aliases on discogs, but nothing I’ve heard of before. Either way, his latest release on Gerd Janson’s Running Back, the label that brought you the best 12″ of 2009, Tensnake’s “In The End (I Want You To Cry)”, brings you a haunting masterpiece of percussive dungeon house heralding the arrival of extraterrestrial agents from planet LOVE. Personally, this track takes me away to a rave in a deserted island prison in French Polynesia during the arrival of the creepiest-sounding but best-intentioned cosmic invaders from planet LOVE.

Precious System – The Voice From Planet Love (Original Mix)

My dudes and ladies. The vast amount of rad progressive disco and house and electronica that has been released over the past year can only mean one thing: the dudes producing this music cannot be from our planet. They must actually be shape-shifting disco prog demigods disguised as humans to live among us. The music they make is their means of communicating with their home planet and with my remote viewing abilities I have been able to decipher the messages hidden within their music. They are planning an invasion and our only hope lies in a pregnant woman, Dennis Quaid and a non-descript English actor whose mild success in films has qualified him for a lead role in our apocalypse. This is the only plausible explanation. That or I fell asleep to the trailer for Legion after taking too many painkillers.

Either way, I decided to give you guys some tracks so you could have a soundtrack to dance your apocalyptic troubles away. Only the best will do, so first off let’s start with Joakim’s massive new remix of Naum Gabo’s Pictur. This remix only affirms the Frenchman’s standing as one of the few extremely capable producers who can successfully bridge the gap between disco, house and electro. The 12″ comes with Joakim’s remix as well as a Naum Gabo’s own reworking of his dark nudisco. But Joakim’s strung-out epic of warped wobbly synths is what you get today. Beautiful artwork as well on the sleeve.

Naum Gabo – Pictur (Joakim Remix)

The other track comes from one of my favorite disco edits labels, Moxie. These dudes have really figured it out and have released so many quality edits from a celebrity panel of dance producers. The latest is no exception and comes from an unknown audio assailant. Two edits of a Prince-inspired space disco track come in Male and Female Versions. Today I share the Male Version, so get it while it’s hawt.

Unknown Artist – Holy “Invasion” (Male Version)

SORRY FOR THE DELAY. MANY THINGS HAVE HAPPENED, INCLUDING MY HD CRASHING AND ME LOSING 90% OF MY MUSIC. HERE IS A POST THAT I WROTE A MONTH AGO WHILE I WAS VISITING MAX IN NEW YORK.  NO PICTURES OF MY WEINER WILL BE POSTED, BUT HERE’S A PIC OF MAX I TOOK AT A CARNIVAL WHILE HE WAS VISITING HIS CARNY PARENTS.

Ok so now you’ve been cruisin on an astral dance plane of fog and lasers for several hours and as you begin to tire you look to the back of the warehouse to the folding chairs situated against the wall. You turn to your friends, shout something about taking a break and begin to weave your way through the crowd towards the back. A peace settles across the dance floor as one of Mark’s pressure dubs starts to cook. You collapse in the foldable chair with your friends, but the simple synths progression and the hi-hat start to gain momentum. The snare drops and a high pitched whine begins to rise out of the dark. You begin to move in your seat and before you know it you are itching to get back on the dance floor. It’s unfair really, when DJs pull that, all you want is rest, but they make you dance, they MAKE you dance. But it’s delightfully tortuous and sore feet and achy legs are a small price to pay for a night of escapist debauchery. Enjoy perhaps one of the best Mark E tracks out there from the Juno 10th anniversary series. Simple. Clean. Patient. Perfect.

The Detroit Experiment – Think Twice (Mark E Pressure Dub)

Now the finale. The recently released edit off of Under The Shade (parent label Jiscomusic) that I have played at every party I’ve DJed in the past few months and another epic from Mark E’s RA Podcast. The B-side is a rad housey edit of “Frankenstein,” the artist of which I can’t recall right now. On the A-side is Mark’s edit of Grace Jones “La Vie En Rose” is minimalist, but perfect in it’s simplicity. It ends every night well and I’m not going to say much more about it. Enjoy.

Mark E – Freakin Shriekin

With the closing of the holy month of Rock-tober we pre-sent to you all our monthly top tens, inter-spersed by droll visual illustrations of alchemical knowledge:

Erik
This Mortal Coil – Song to the Siren
Fleetwood Mac – Hypnotized
Tensnake – Can You Feel It
Mick Karn – The Sound of Waves
Lindstrom & Christabelle – Keep It Up
Anton Zap – Alice Miracle
Thomas Dolby – The Flat Earth
Durutti Column – Bordeaux
Florence & the Machine – Rabbit Heart (Leo Zero Remix)
Eggs Over Easy – Arkansas

Jimmy
Still Going – Untitled Love
Lindstrom & Christabelle – Baby Can’t Stop
Mark E – Freakin Shriekin
Jackpot – Jungle Gym
Abe Vigoda – Wild Heart
Linkwood – Tears
Rheingold – Dreiklangs-Dimensionen
Amon Duul II – Soap Shop Rock
Can – Yoo Do Right
Dr Hook – Penny (Galleon Trade’s Hooked On Penicillin Version)

Max
Lindstrøm & Christabelle – Lovesick
Lindstrøm & Christabelle – High & Low
Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Richard X Extended Mix)
Tensnake – Holding Back (My Love)
Al Usher – Lullaby for Robert (Bogdan Irkük Remix)
Sly Mongoose – Snakes ‘n Ladder (Rub n Rug Remix)
Prince – If I Was Your Boyfriend
Kite – Hills
Washed Out – Feel It All Around
Bobby (Boris) Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers – Monster Mash

I have a Whole Foods down the street from me and on Saturdays I like to go free-sampling in typical poorgeoisie fashion.  I can usually get a good fill by making my way around the store, but when you’re baked on a Saturday morning and you haven’t eaten anything, free samples can’t always satiate your hunger.  Plus I’m a compulsive shopper so I usually end up with a few items in hand and when I’m checking out, the cute hipster girl working the Express counter asks if I brought my bags.  A flicker of guilt sparks in the back of my mind and begins to creep over me.  I didn’t bring my bags because I was stoned and wasn’t going to buy anything, but I AM eco-conscious TRUST ME.  Not like in the I-crap-in-my-backyard-to-fertilize-my-organic-garden-Berkeley-eco-conscious, but I ride my bike places and I recycle.  But now it’s decision time and I just bought orange juice, eggs, chips, salsa and some weird marinated cheese item that was a free-sample.  Admirably I refuse the paper bag, hoping on some level she will acknowledge my sacrifice for the planet and go out on a date with me.  But instead I end up carrying all this heavy shit I bought up the hill back to my house.

I guess that was a bit of a Sedaris-esque post, but I couldn’t really think of a lead-in for this record.  Peep “Bagwan Boogie” from The Soft Rocks EP off of the impeccable Blackdisco.  This is the second most recent release from the label and has some real winners.  More recent is Abel’s EP, but I think the Soft Rocks release really kills it.  Definitely worth the buy so seek it out if you dig the track.

Soft Rocks – Bagwan Boogie

Then another track for you that has been on repeat for me recently.  A change of pace to Abe Vigoda’s melancholy noise rock.  The album Reviver from earlier this year is pretty fantastic in my opinion and “Wild Heart” in particular is great.

Abe Vigoda – Wild Heart

K, so I had this whole blog post planned here, where I was going to take the names of certain DJs and producers totally literally, like, what if Rub-n-Tug was actually, literally, a massage parlor handjob that was a DJ, and, like, what if Mudd was actually just mud, that, like, made music, or, you know if DJ Harvey was Jimmy Stewart’s invisible best rabbit friend. But it turns out it wasn’t all that funny and got kind of tired after the first couple jokes and besides it might be kind of offensive in the case of Air France, what with the plane that crashed last year, and how some people hate the French.

The real reason for this “joke” was that I was going to post some tracks by Tensnake, and then (you might be able to see where this is going), write about how what if all these tracks were produced by a group of ten snakes, and each one was operating a different element of the production, like one snake was on the faders, and another snake was hitting the drum machine, and this other snake was, like, singing, or something, and wouldn’t that be funny. And to be honest, I still stand by the idea that a singing snake is pretty funny (actually I’m kind of laughing at it right now, in my head. The snake is singing, guys! Singing!) But y’all: I know the drill. I get tired of my dumb jokes too, probably more even than you guys get tired, because I literally live with my own stupid jokes, whereas you guys are mostly just comment spammers and, for some reason, British people.

Plus, if all these tracks were actually produced by ten snakes, they probably wouldn’t name themselves Tensnake, because then their secret would be obvious, and no one would listen to them, because, you know, snakes. They would probably call themselves something like, “DJ Tom” or “Tables and Chairs,” or something more traditionally stupid and boring. Possibly “DJ Frederick Robot.”

Anyway: we already posted some Tensnake for you earlier this year—the delightful title track from the “In the End (I Want to Cry)” twelve-inch—but because I’ve been on a kick with this dude (or, possibly, these snakes), I wanted to post a couple more tracks. “Holding Back (My Love),” a gorgeous, shimmering late-night/early-morning bit of wobbly house, is from the “In the End” 12; “Battlehymn for the Children (Tensnake Dub Remix),” a glorious disco-ball explosion, is a remix of everyone’s second-favorite midwestern goths the Faint (the first-favorite, obviously, is Insane Clown Posse); “Congolal,” which sounds like the score to the best 80s action-comedy never made, is from the internet somewhere. I don’t know anyone besides Aeroplane doing the pop-house-sheen as well as Tensnake right now, so get “on the snake” before you look stupid for being late to the game.

Tensnake – Holding Back (My Love)
The Faint – Battle Hymn for Children (Tensnake Remix)
Tensnake – Congolal

Important Question For The Internet: is “St. Etienne,” the famous British recording artist, actually a saint (in the religious sense)?

I have been misled before, you know—Saint Vincent, the “independent music artist” is not actually a saint, despite what this young man (who uses the “n-word” in a transgressive way) on U-Tube.com says—and I don’t want to get into another argument with my priest about this kind of thing, because I would rather not go to jail again, if possible.

But here is my dilemma, guys: If Saint Etienne is not actually a saint, whose special saint-power is to make good music, does that make me a blasphemer every time I listen to him, because I am calling him a saint? Also, if my religion (Christianity) does not think that Saint Etienne is a saint, does this make my religion wrong/for idiots?

I think I am going to start a new religion, called “The Church of St. Etienne.” You can join if you want, unless you have swine flu. We will meet every Wednesday and Sunday at my apartment and read each other testimonials about when we listened to St. Etienne that week, and maybe drink white wine with ice cubes and laugh at each other’s jokes. Sometimes someone will bring a small plate of home-baked cookies, and we can eat them while we talk about our religion, and grow closer to each other as friends.

There is already a controversy in my church that I just made up five minutes ago: what to do about this new version of Foxbase Alpha, which is called Foxbase Beta, and is a “remix” of the original album, Foxbase Alpha, by the famous American civil rights activist and Nation of Islam leader Richard X. Let me put this in a way everyone can understand: what if your holy book, the Koran, or Qu’ran, or whatever, was “remixed”? And instead of the Surah about Mohammed flying to the dome of the rock on a donkey, or whatever happens, instead Mohammed was turned into a 110-bpm slow-burning balearic piano jam. And what if you totally liked it more than the original Koran, like maybe, all the Koran ever wanted to be was this super thick cough-syrup house with jungle sounds. Wouldn’t that be controversial, if that happened with Saint Etienne?

Well guess what: it did.

And it tore my church apart.

Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Richard X Remix)

So last night I went out to the Warm Leatherette party in the Western Addition. Dudes there play coldwave, italo, and other dark minimal synthy jamz in what I could only describe as a gothy dance party, but it works great! I’ll let you know when the next one is due to occur, but just a heads up if you’re in the SF area, check this party out cuz it’s fun.

Ok here’s the next in my series of Mark E trax. As the night creeps on, you’ve had a few drinks, inhibitions are dwindling, and when this track comes on you just start to lose your shit and don’t care what you look like on the dance floor anymore. A funky incarnation that drives the self-confidence-o-meter to new highs as you groove to the house beatz. I hate that term because it makes me think of the late 90s when house music was cheesy and dudes referred to their records as wax, but I felt it fit here. Enjoy the AA side of Mark’s new release on his own label Merc.

Mark E – You

Do you you remember the first time you heard “I Feel Space,” and thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if, instead of just referencing Moroder in a way some terrible critic will eventually describe as ‘cheeky,’ Lindstrøm would just straight-up make a Moroder album, but, like, the twenty-first century version?”

Ha! How young you were: because what you really meant was: “I wish Lindstrøm would make album after album of 10-minute-plus space-prog-disco jams influenced by a variety of Germans from the 1970s, and Vangelis.” And he granted that wish, because he heard you, inside his space igloo orbiting Oslo, where he entertains guests and uses marijuana freely, by making such albums as Lindstrøm and Pris Thomas and Where You Go I Go Too and Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas II, which is the second album he made with Prins Thomas, a frequent guest of the Oslo-orbiting space igloo.

And yet, if you did, in fact, say, “Where, and when, will I be able to hear Lindstrøm do Giorgio, instead of Vangelis, or Jan Hammer, or fucking Cluster?” you can be forgiven, because your question is answered: you can hear it in the comfort of your own home, on January 18, because he is releasing an album called Real Life Is No Cool with Christabelle, who, God knows why, used to be called Solale, and is probably actually Prins Thomas.

(You’ll notice that I’ve made the unbelievably sexist assumption that this is Lindstrøm’s album more than it is Christabelle’s. This is partly because I don’t know anything about Christabelle, and also because I am confused by my feelings for Lindstrøm in an exciting way, and how can I be sexist, if I am gay, or at least bi-curious?)

Now, I can already hear your disco-nerd boners sucking blood from your pot bellies as you get ready to yell at me: “This isn’t Moroder! This doesn’t sound anything like Moroder! Your blog is terrible!” All of which is true. I mean: it does sound like Moroder, in the same way that WYGIGT sounded like Vangelis, which means, sort of, in fits and starts, here and there. But the Moroder comparison is the way in to the record, for me; it’s how to start listening to it and thinking about it. Because, let’s be honest, you don’t put your name on a synth disco album with a female singer without paying tithes to Moroder and Donna Summer. Lindstrøm is doing his own thing here the way he’s always done his own thing, which is to take his favorite records (or what I assume are his favorite records) and reimagine them: what would this sound like if it were released in 2009? And also, if I made it sound like we just drank a lot of cough syrup in the studio?

As you can guess, the whole thing is fucking ridiculous. Every day I have a new favorite track; the missteps are few and far between. “Lovesick” sounds a little bit like that N.E.R.D. song “Lapdance” (LOL, obviously), but is mostly its own stuttering, stomping beast; “High and Low” is a radar-pinging slow jam with a smoking guitar solo; “Baby Can’t Stop” sounds like the funnest night out, ever. Truth is, I might like it more even than all those blunted synth jam sessions, and that’s saying a lot—I mean, the real truth is, there are a couple tracks on here as good as “I Feel Space”—and that says everything.

Lindstrøm & Christabelle – Lovesick