Disco Horror

DFA Records has been on a crazy awesome rampage of releasing outstanding 12″ singles these past few years, as Max confusingly proved just a few days ago with that excellent new Still Going jam. A ridiculous proportion of my favorite recent tracks have been released by or affiliated with the label- Tiedye’s remix of DJ Kaos, the Holy Ghost single/Classixx remix, Walter Jones, Altair Noveau, Rub-N-Tug’s remix of Capracara, tons more. Their hit-to-miss ratio is getting better with each new release, so I was a little worried when I heard that they were putting out a remix bundle for LCD Soundystem‘s 2006 album and ode-to-Nikes ’45:33′. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the album/loooong-ass-song, or even LCD Soundsystem for that matter- quite the contrary. I just always wonder why it takes 3 or more years to gather up a release of any kind, especially since parts of the album were already revisited on 2007′s ‘Sound of Silver’ and I DUNO IT’S BEEN THREE YEARS GUYS.

They at least gathered up a pretty impressive crew of remixers, including Prins Thomas and Prince Language but sadly not, y’know, Prince. Out of the eight (!) total remixes of the album/track provided on the release, Padded Cell‘s ecstatic remix deserves top honors in my opinion (The mp3s had been mislabeled btw, and apparently I was digging this Padded Cell mix all along lol, way more than the Theo Parrish mix). There’s nothing not to love about these eight minutes of wigged out modern italo complete with James Murphy’s spacey ramblings, jammy bongos and a lovably-appropriate hook; I’m not sure it was worth years of waiting and hyping but I am sure you’ll have a nice little voyage regardless.

LCD Soundsystem – 45:33 (Padded Cell Remix)

We return from our week-long absence here at Disco Horror to bring you a trifecta of recent down-tempo house favorites, each constructed with a solid foundation of dance-floor friendly grooves and tastefully ornamented with melancholic vocal samples to create some of the finest contemporary tune-architecture in the biz.

Floating Points- aka Sam Shepard- has been deservedly receiving much attention for his latest release- the ‘Love Me Like This’ 12-inch on R2 Records. Borrowing heavily from Real to Reel’s track of the same name, the title track applies the slo-mo disco treatment to the original with brilliant results. The one that’s making the rounds on the interweb right now is the original mix, but it’s the vinyl-only ‘Radio Mix’ that has been getting all the plays at my house lately. The ‘Radio Mix’ utilizes the Real to Reel track’s vocals in more instantly-gratifying ways, and the result is slightly less Mark E and slightly more vintage Levan. But only slightly.

Floating Points – Love Me Like This (Radio Version)

New Orleans-based artist Walter Jones has recently made the jump from the German label Supersoul to perennial Disco Horror favorite DFA Records, and to mark the occasion they’ve put out the man’s fantastic new twelve-inch ‘I’ll Keep On Loving You’. Other blogs are flipping out over the b-side “Living Without Your Love,” which is a great tune, don’t get me wrong, but I actually prefer the title track if given the choice. Featuring muted synth lines and some heavily filtered vocal snippets from Jones himself, the sound here lands somewhere between current italo-revivalists like Bogdan Irkuk or Johan Agebjörn and the Detroit-style disco-house edits of Theo Parrish. Which is some pretty incredible territory to land yourself in, as it turns out.

Walter Jones – I’ll Keep On Loving You

Finally, we have a new tune for you from one of my favorite modern producers- Hamburg’s Marco Niemerski, better known as Tensnake. Rising to my radar with his awesome ‘Keep Believin’ EP on Endless Flight and a slough of ace remixes, Tensnake recently cemented his place in my heart with the ‘In the End (I Want To Cry)’ twelve-inch on Running Back. As usual, all of the tracks on the EP are more than worthy of your time, varying in style from more straightforward techno productions to stylish nu-balearica to glitzy disco-house jams. However, (yet again) it’s the title track here that stands out the most, nicely sequencing all of those elements into another exemplary filter-disco showcase.

Tensnake – In the End (I Want To Cry)

First and foremost, an introduction to a new contributor to Disco Horror, Erik (pictured with myself above), a fellow ILMer who we thought he could contribute some great tunes to the mass-media cultural phenomenon taking the country by storm that is Disco Horror! Not really, but he WILL be throwing down some mixes and sharing his latest purchases with Max and myself and he gets access to all the benefits of being a conributor to Disco Horror, like keys to the yacht, VIP-membership to all the hottest clubs, a life of general excess, and a $25 gift-certificate to Best Buy! Don’t you wish you were all so lucky! So welcome! and now on to the tunes.

As I blawgged before, DFAmer and former Six Finger Satellite member, The Juan Maclean’s new album is making some serious noise and I’ve been playing it quite a bit, but now it’s time for the remixes! The One Day 12″ features remixes by the Emperor Machine and Surkin. The Emperor Machine mix churns along like a train dragging you to hell, buzzing with bolts of psychedelic energy and giving you bits and pieces of the original track’s vocals along the way. But MY choice of the release is the Surkin mix, which raves harder than those dudes with shirts off and gloves with lights on the ends of the fingertips. I feel like raving has been a theme of my recent posts, but this is a pretty special mix and he adds all these grainy effects, 808 cowbells, and what sounds like an Ozzy Ozbourne sample in a way that makes you want to forget your cares and dance the night away under the lazers and weirdos with elmo backpacks, or maybe a less lame scene, just listen to this and I’ll stop writing.

The Juan Maclean – One Day (Surkin Remix)

Clinic – Tomorrow (DFA Remix)