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DOWNLOAD: The Ice Choir - Two Rings
People from the '80s sure did sound mean. But I guess that meanness can sometimes come in handy. Would I, for instance, have had to sit through so many boring Friday night dinner parties if I could have repelled the advances of idiots and dullards by hitting them with ice blasts of frozen-hearted synthpop? Kurt Feldman, the guy behind The Ice Choir, also drums for The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, AKA the nicest guys in music ever. So who knows, maybe Kurt got tired of spooning creme brulee into his mouth and decided to take action. "Two Rings" – out November 15 through Shelflife, and highly reminiscent of New Order – certainly works for me as idiot repellent.
DOWNLOAD: Frank Alpine - Dark Places
You know what? I kinda get the impression that Frank Alpine actually enjoys being in dark places. Wierd are releasing his self-titled debut album on Halloween, for Christ's sake. Who does that if not the sort of person who sprints home from work so they can spend a larger proportion of the evening hiding in the cupboard under the stairs? It's from that dark place that I imagine the lo-fi hum of Alpine's electronics and his deranged and echoing bark emanate, chasing me up to bed like when I was a kid and the only person who gave a shit about vampires was Sarah Michelle Gellar.
PREMIERE: Monarchy - You Don't Want To Dance With Me (Moonlight Matters Remix)
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Who doesn’t want to dance with Monarchy? I want to meet the misanthrope after which this track is named, the one who hates Grade A nu-disco overflowing with bubbly bass, hooky piano keys and ingratiating sugarpop vocals so that I may look into the face of evil itself. Moonlight Matters’ remix of Monarchy and Britt Love’s “You Don’t Want To Dance With Me” proves there is good—and good music—still left in this world. Jiggle around to it (with someone amenable) until the proper single drops on October 24 via 100% Records.
Monarchy - You Don't Want To Dance With Me (Moonlight Matters Remix)
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PREMIERE: Bright Future - Mit Dir + 2 More
True story: We were having a standard vanilla Thursday, when from the mist, Bright Future's Frank Midnite shimmies out in his skinnies and geode necklaces and handed us two witchy nu-pop tracks he’d made out of rain puddle synths and swollen beats and pained indie vocals and when we said “Dude?” he showed us how a zombie would dance to them, and before we could get any more information like where he came from and how we could ever see him again, was like, “Yea, whatevah!” and totally just disappeared into the night. Maybe, we thought, forever. But then he came blazing through our inbox with a super-duper DIY cover of 1984 German analog hit “Mit Dir” and it turns out he wasn’t gone, just making that, and well, we decided that we couldn’t keep any of these tracks or this tale to ourselves a minute longer and this post was born.
PREMIERE: Mathieu Santos - Northern Mentality (Friendly Ghost Remix)
(Photo: Leia Jospe)
You may think of Mathieu Santos as the founding bassist and chorus crooner in Ra Ra Riot, but after today you’ll think of him as the wondrous nerd in the popsicle windbreaker who gets electro-whipped to his knees by Friendly Ghost. Synthpop bomb “Northern Mentality” forgoes the chamber-pop lean of Santos’s past for slappy breaks, bullish synths and flaming bass. And oh how they fit. Check the rest of his highly melodic solo effort over on Barsuk.
Mathieu Santos - Northern Mentality (Friendly Ghost Remix)
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DOWNLOAD: The Drums - Money (Beat Connection Remix)
Given that I've spent the last three days writing about gangs of kids fighting police in the streets and unprecedented looting sprees in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and other English towns and cities, it's hard for me not to see everything through a riot prism. (Ie a prism that doesn't have any glass left because it's all been smashed.) I go to get the milk out of the fridge for a cup of tea, I hurl it across the room at an imaginary police officer. I go to take the bins out, and I'm setting them on fire and dragging them down the street to form a barricade. I listen to this remix of The Drums by Beat Connection, and all I think when I hear the line "I want to buy you something/but I don't have any money" is 'Awwww, those guys in hoodies and ski masks broke into all those shops because they wanted to get presents for their girlfriends.' I am a fool, and I hope that this delusion passes quickly, because I would not last a second in jail.
The Drums - Money (Beat Connection Remix)
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DOWNLOAD: Xeno and Oaklander - Not Afraid
Look at you, sitting there in your generic outfit at your boring desk job, poring over the accounts or manipulating your database or whatever the hell it is you do with numbers now. By which I mean to say: C'mon, man—don't you remember when you were 13 and you wanted to get married in a lighthouse in matching black wedding dresses? Don't you remember what it felt like to be an outsider? I've always thought of Xeno & Oaklander as two who've never grown out of that, really, but in a totally good (if gloomy) way. If Tyler, the Creator says he never wants to stop being a kid, then Xeno & Oaklander never want to remove their toes from the precipice of adolescence, preferring to keep each other company as the big, yawning crevasse of bad sex and drug embarrassment beckons them to swan dive on in. "Not Afraid", out as the B-side of their latest single "Staircase" through Wierd last month, is the sort of gothic synthpop that'll keep them forever teetering tensely at canyon's edge.
Xeno and Oaklander - Not Afraid
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DOWNLOAD: Noah and the Whale - Tonight's The Kind Of Night (RAC Mix)
The plucky bit of indiepop that is RAC’s refit of Noah and the Whale’s “Tonight’s The Kind Of Night” is so not about night. Instead, buoyant electro harps and beats flutter with afternoon bliss, recasting the previously brooding vocals into new wave jubilee. Enjoy it while the sun is still shining; then check the nu-folk team's upcoming tour dates here.
Noah and the Whale - Tonight's The Kind Of Night (RAC Mix)
Get More Noah and the Whale Music Here
