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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One last reminder, our inaugural party is tonight at 222 Club in the Tenderloin. The place has a new soundsystem and also a larger dance floor than it used to! The party starts at 9 and Dan Judd aka. Sorcerer will be kicking things off so be sure to get there early! And remember it’s FREE so say fuck the work week and come party with us!
Mark E, one of our favorites here at DiscoHorror, has finally been releasing all of the looped slo-mo madness he has been gradually unleashing on dance floors worldwide for the past year or two on an assortment of labels, so here is the first of four posts covering his latest and semi-latest releases.
I’ll kick things off with an opener that rises out of the depths like a sunrise over the open ocean, slowly bleaching the night sky until it turns it to a pale morning gray. Then finally washing you over with warm beams as it begins to peer over the waves crashing on the beach. The hypnotizing beat with its whooshing synths stirring up the calm sea. The release, Codsall Juniors, features two original compositions released on the fantastic Endless Flight label and I first heard this track on Mark E’s RA Podcast, but KZA has also used it in his new mix I’m Starting to Feel OK Vol. 3, enjoy!
LOL I took a picture of a sunset with an instant camera, someone put me out of my misery
Oh my God y’all it’s been too long.
Blogging just runs in my blood, you feel me, and spending this much time away from the game is like being trampled by a horse who instead of having hooves has swords as feet. I bet most of you thought I was off doing some super-secret government shit, like converting the entire U.S. cabinet to Muslimry or murdering white babies for use in consommés, but the real deal is this: I went to Croatia, and then to Hungary, and then I spent three weeks living with my parents just illing.
Croatia! Have you ever been? Don’t tell anyone but it is awesome. It is sort of a secret, since everyone assumes that it is filled with murderous Slavs of various difficult-to-discern identities, like maybe Russia, but with more guns and unexploded mines. Well: everyone who assumes that is wrong (by the way, British people, I know you know about Croatia, and do you know why I know? Because there are literally thousands of you, pale and drunk, scattered across the coast, making Americans look like models of respect and restraint). Croatia, it turns out, is basically Italy, but without any boring culture that your Lonely Planet guide guilts you into seeing. Actually, it is more beautiful than Italy, because there are slightly fewer of those guys selling the weird dancing paper Mickey Mouse toys, and also because you can basically just give up pretending to speak in Italian because you took Spanish 201 in college. Seriously, guys, this place is like whoa.
I mean, people are all like, “Balearic music! Balearic islands!” or whatever, which is cool, I’m sure, except that this is like: Balearic squared. This is like, when you listen to Smith & Mudd, and you’re like, what does this remind me of, well, it reminds you of Croatia.
Budapest is not really anything like Croatia. Really what it is like is Paris, except not as loud, or large, and everyone speaks Hungarian, which is a hilarious made-up language with—I’m not joking here—three different versions of the letter “O.” I could tell you about the beautiful things I saw, or all the gyros I ate, except really the absolute and unquestionable highlight of my week there–of my whole trip–was the stuffed goose neck I ate at this little Jewish-Hungarian restaurant called Fülemüle. This is what it tasted like: damn.
So then I got home, and I was all, “I’m gonna get back to posting, cause my fans missed me,” and then instead I figured I would sit around and feel sorry for my underemployed self, which has worked out pretty well so far.
Anyway, the takeaway is this:
1) I’m looking for work (LOL, kill me), so if you know anyone who needs some writing done, email me: max@discohorror.com. I will literally write about anything, for money, so, you know. Please.
2) Or, Jesus, even a retail job, admin work, rentboy, whatever, in New York City. Bonus if you know about two jobs–I’m not the only unemployed person in my apartment (know any art world jobs? Design-y type things?).
3) Croatia is bad-ass. Budapest is ridiculous. We have a bunch of photos up here.
5) I have a ton of shit to give you over the next few days–including a track from a CD by an artist whose name rhymes with “Pindstrøm and Pristabelle”–but for now I’m just gonna leave you with a little Croatian ditty called “Vilo Moja” (pronounced “VEE-lo MOY-a”) by a group called Crikvenica (pronounced, um, with noises). This is an example of “Klapa” singing, where a bunch of Croatian dudes get together and get drunk and sing harmonies with each other while they play a mandolin, and I spent three hours one day listening to songs like this at a bar where this was the view:
LOL I took a picture of beer with my iPhone seriously someone kill me
John Talabot has been getting “hella buzz” in the blogmosphere in these past few months, and though I usually avoid these types of phenomena I have come to realize that this guy is pretty damn legit. One indicator is that his latest release, a 12″ called ‘My Old School‘, was put out by the trustworthy German folks over at Permanent Vacation- a longtime favorite label of Disco Horror. Another tip was that the guy is from Barcelona, Spain, and is thereby clearly FAR more ‘Balearic’ than most other new artists out there simply by virtue of him being physically much closer to the islands themselves. I realize my theory kinda falls apart when you consider the types of music actually being played in Ibiza these days, but take one listen to the much-hyped “Sunshine” (released earlier this year on Hivern Disc) and I think you’ll be on the level.
Now you can find that track pretty much anywhere, but we like to keep things fresh around here and the Permanent Vacation EP really deserves more attention. All tunes on ‘My Old School’ play like slightly tranced-out, tropical versions of the slo-mo edits we’ve been loving from dudes like The Revenge and Ray Mang. It’s right up our alley; “Korlee” is buit upon jangly bongos, sweeping strings, Spanish guitar, and a sultry vocal snippet, and y’know what I just may take it on a little sunset date to Baker Beach in a few hours.
Straight out of the wilderness I bring you two psychedelic disco goodies today from the ever impressive Smalltown Supersound label. Though they are pretty different in style, these tracks deliver a similarly groovy weirdness not usually associated with dance music. What really matters is that they will both make you shake your ass and lose your mind at the same time, which is pretty much all I could ever ask of a meager little mp3.
We’ve mentioned Mungolian Jetset a few times, but I recently realized that we are nonetheless severely lacking in the Mung-tunes category here at Disco Horror. Well that is about to change, and you can thank the Norwegian duo’s forthcoming double-disc compilation ‘We Gave It All Away… Now We Are Taking It Back’ for the reminder. The album collects many of their remixes and productions from the past few years and makes a damn strong case for the Mungolians being one of the most idiosyncratic dance crews around. “Creepy” is crawling with life; the track is thick with squiggly atmospherics and oddball synth lines that lurk underneath the clean disco-house facade, resurfacing for the occassional unsettling moment or to enhance the peak of a monumental build. Just be sure to check yourself for leeches afterwards.
I may have written about Bjørn Torske just last week, but I also promised that I would soon post his amazing edit of avant-folk collective Sunburned Hand of the Man’s “The Parakeet Beat”- and I will not break said promise. Available on this year’s ‘Smalltown Supersound Is On Fire’ compilation, Torske here has concocted one of the beardiest disco tunes I’ve ever heard. It all begins with some galloping, primitive percussion and a krauty guitar lead that eventually fade into warm fuzzy nothingness, and just when you think the party’s over some funky wah-action suddenly erupts and everyone jams the fuck out for another four minutes or so. This is definitely the only remix of an experimental-folk jam session I’ve ever heard (if you know about more don’t hold out on me bro), and if you find that idea even remotely appealing I think you’ll have a pretty good trip.
