Disco Horror

Tensnake, hanging out with Samuel L. Jackson

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

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)