DOWNLOAD: Birds & Batteries - Sneaky Times + Out In The Woods
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Birds & Batteries’ new EP Up To No Good came out this week and there’s been some talk about honky-tonk layering, Halloween freak boogie and lost in the woods funk. Also, cough syrup-induced dancing. Below, a little more throat coat with “Sneaky Times” and "Out In The Woods" until the full length anodyne drops in 2010.
Birds & Batteries - Out In The Woods
Birds & Batteries - Sneaky Times
Previously:
Birds & Batteries - The Villain
DOWNLOAD: Aural Exciters - Spooks In Space (Luke Howard & Felix Dickinson Filthy & Foolish Edit)
It's hard to get super excited about disco edit comps 'cause often they are quite middling, but when dudes like Greg Wilson, Todd Terje, Rub-N-Tug, Optimo, and more start hacking away at the catalog of Ze Records–one of New York's best no-wave/mutant disco/whatever-it-was-the-seventies-who-knows-what-to-call-it labels–we throw those presumptions aside because it will probably be worth listening to. And Strut's new Zevolution: Ze Records Re-Edited CD is worth listening to. They're floating around this Aural Exciters edit from Luke Howard and Felix Dickinson of Horse Meat Disco before the whole thing drops on November 24th, so you now have a ramped-up piano disco song with bongwater sounds for your weekend. You're welcome!
Aural Exciters - Spooks In Space (Luke Howard & Felix Dickinson Filthy & Foolish Edit)
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Birds and Batteries - Lightning (UTNG Version) + The Villain
This is some freak-funk, alt-electro right here. Birds and Batteries’ Up To No Good is dark with John Carpenter-esque crescendos, arpeggiated basslines and throwback studio slick, and kicks out just in time for Halloween. Blast it in honkey-tonk dives and haunted houses alike.
Sounds like: David Bowie, Lindstrom, Neil Young
Birds and Batteries - Lightning (UTNG Version)
Birds and Batteries - The Villain
Birds and Batteries' RCRD LBL Page
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Claude VonStroke - The Greasy Beat ft. Bootsy Collins (Natural Funk Mix)
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No idea how this collabo between one of the world's most exciting house producers and an undisputed funk legend occurred–we're too busy trying to do the worm to sweat the backstory. "The Greasy Beat," out now as a single, first appeared in May on VonStroke's Fabric.46 mix and pops up again in a simpler form on his new LP for dirtybird, Bird Brain. This version, available exclusively here, lets its weird wings out a bit–the bass shaped a little rounder, the funk hitting a lot deeper. Bird Brain is out October 20th.
Claude VonStroke - The Greasy Beat ft. Bootsy Collins (Natural Funk Mix)
Previously:
Claude VonStroke - The Whistler (The Aston Shuffle Remix)
Claude VonStroke - Who's Afraid Of Detroit? (Audion Remix)
Claude VonStroke - Groundhog Day (Chaim Remix) with Christian Martin
Claude VonStroke - BBC 2-Hour Essential Mix: Part 1
Claude VonStroke - BBC 2-Hour Essential Mix: Part 2
Claude VonStroke - BBC 2-Hour Essential Mix: Part 3
Claude VonStroke - December 2008 Radio One Mix
EXCLUSIVE NEW DOWNLOAD: Tiga - Beep Beep Beep (Extended 12" Remix)
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Disco is full of creepy men looking to score, so it's refreshing to get your head lost in this pulsing, drifting ten minute version of Tiga's new single. Tiga isn't creepy - this is boyfriend disco, our DJ dismissing texted booty call "beep beep beeps" in favour of that one person who really makes him and the chorus go "ooh, wooh, oooh". For ten whole minutes. That's some effort. It's a bit like the Taj Mahal but with wicked synths and a neverending four-four beat.
Sounds Like: LCD Soundsystem, Giorgio Moroder, The Phenomenal Handclap Band
Tiga - Beep Beep Beep (Extended 12" Remix)
Previously:
Tiga & Zyntherius - Sunglasses At Night (Alter Ego Instrumental)
Tiga & Zyntherius - Sunglasses At Night (Brodinksi & Yuksek Remix)
DOWNLOAD: Gang of Four - Glass (2009)
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It's fairly easy to pinpoint Gang of Four's influences - they've obviously taken some cues from Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, The Futureheads and every other band in the UK circa 2003, yet still manage to carve together a sound that's razor-sharp and original, somehow. It's kind of eerie. Anyway, check these young whelps as they slash and groove their way across the UK next month. I think they're gonna be what we in the know like to call "a pretty big deal".
Sounds Like: Devo, The Police, The Jam
Previously:
DOWNLOAD: Gyratory System - Cargo Cult
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Why do people hate Mark Ronson so much? The Londoner seems to attract an extraordinary amount of bile for someone whose arrangements are so basically inoffensive. Perhaps Ronson's problem is that his strings are just too heroic, to the extent that at times they appear to come tooting and parping from between Lois Lane's legs. Superman, as we all know, is incredibly boring. Not just the most boring of all superheroes, but probably more boring than 75 per cent of the mortal population, among which lurk Gyratory System, whose strings are anything but heroic - the instrumental quartet's sound is paranoid and pent-up, reassuringly human. For them, strings wriggle and throb like fraying nerves. They'll probably never have to worry about stopping a runaway train or get to gunge-race prime-era Teri Hatcher, but they're infinitely more interesting than Superman and that's what counts.
Sounds Like: Emperor Machine, Talking Heads, Valerio Cosi in a rush
Previously:
DOWNLOAD: Datarock - True Stories
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"True Stories"' lyrics are made up completely of song titles chosen by the popular New York beat combo Talking Heads. Does that bother you? It bothered me. But then I heard the track and everything made a strange sort of sense, 'cause the melody flows and guitars were just how I like 'em - sharp, smart, neat and lean, their excellently focused power punching holes in percussive walls. That's Datarock. Dressed in red tracksuits, punching through all your walls. Their new album Red was released last month.
Sounds Like: Roxy Music, Orange Juice, Abe Vigoda
Previously:
Datarock - Computer Camp Love (SLR LIVE)
DOWNLOAD: Extraperlo - Cavalcade + Banadores
Is it worth apologising for the poor quality of that photo? Does it offend your eyes? I hope for your sake's you're not so prude, but either way Extraperlo probably aren't worrying too much. The quartet's sound is a remarkably carefree one, something that chimes with my own memories of their home city in late spring, early summer. Barcelona's a beautiful place and "Cavalcade" is a beautiful song, primary colour synths gliding overhead like crop dusting planes spiked with colourful smoke, the red and yellow of the Catalan flag pressing against clear, blue skies. Less pretentiously, vocalist Borja Rosal sounds oddly like Joe Strummer, while funk guitars strut and settle into glimmering patterns reminiscent of Orchestra Harlow's "Horsin' Up" or oddly, again, Wild Beasts or Orange Juice. Extraperlo have been compared to El Guincho but while that was perhaps inevitable given their hometown and an affiliation with the same label (the great Discoteca Oceano) that brought El Guincho's music to the world, this band's tropicalia seems to lurk within the track without ever making itself explicitly known, understated, wandering and - yes - carefree.
Sounds Like: Air France, Wild Beasts, The Clash
DOWNLOAD: DJ Food - The Illectrik Hoax (Featuring Natural Self)
Begun in the early nineties by DJs Coldcut and PC as a series of jazz breaks LPs, the collaborative DJ Food project has over the years morphed down to one man, Strictly Kev, a DJ and graphic designer for Ninja Tune. Kev's currently finishing the first DJ Food album since 2001–due for release next year–and he's prefacing it with two EPs, the first of which is the source of this nugget, One Man's Weird Is Another Man's World. "The Illectric Hoax" is one of those intergalactic big beat tunes that only get made by dudes with more records than people who live in Wyoming, meaning for us plebes it is essentially a Cliff's Notes to obscure vinyl nerdom. 'Cause I know you all have been looking for that.
One Man's Weird Is Another Man's World is out today through Ninja Tune.
Sounds like: Map Of Africa, Lo Fidelity Allstars
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