I like to listen to music in my spare time. Here are some things I love
This post has the following sections, visit those you please:
great techno (yousendit only! get it while it's HOT)
albums (electronic version)
albums (folk rock version)
albums (krautrock version)
great techno
First off, we've got both sides of a release from what is apparently the new "it" label, Liebe Detail. Sherburne's been bigging it up in his techno column for pitchfork, and it's getting name dropped all over the place, and what do ya know? Turns out it kicks ass! The matthias meyer track is absolute gigantic techno monster, the ndru track slinky schaffel mood music. Keep tabs on this
matthias meyer - reichenbach
ndru - a pony named clipklop
Best track from that gustavo lamas 12" i blogged about below. Absolutely blissful techno, teeming with warmth. perfect first-thing-in the morning track
gustavo lamas - jovenes
I went on a bit of a binge downloading all sorts of remixes from Hot Chip's last album. Here are a few of my favorites.
hot chip - (just like we) breakdown (booka shade vocal mix)
hot chip - colours (jeff samuel rmx) [love the descending bassline on this one!]
hot chip - boy from school (cosmic sandwich remix) [deep. house.]
Lovely new one on Kompakt--pretty damn big-room and trancey, which is, what? TEH GREBT
Aril Brikha - Winter
This one's kinda old, but i realized i never posted it, and i LOVE it. Absolutely evil. Released on Richie Hawtin's M_nus imprint, and is very reminiscent of plastikman at his best.
heartthrob - baby kate
the following two from the excellent blog House is a Feeling
Faze Action - In the trees (carl craig mix)
H.O.S.H - suestoff
albums (electronic version)
Well, Sherburne listed this as his favorite album of '06, so I had to check it out. Turns out it's one of those back-and-forth, record then remix then record some more deals, going back and forth between burnt friedman and a jazz group called flanger. A nice change of pace for me this one, pretty mellow, but with a good beat to it--not crappy easy-listening jazz but nice jazz (me once again wishing I new more about jazz). I think it gets stronger as the album progresses. Moody, organic...but then you notice, wtf, every track is exactly 5:00 long??? Awesome
root 70 - heaps dub
Before Hot Chip's breakout '06 release, there was the '04 first album. A little more lo-fi, a bit more low-key, and a lot weirder lyrically (those "fey white-boy copping hardcore hip-hop lingo" lyrics are far more in effect), it's still just as charming and fun to listen to. I've decided I really rate Hot Chip highly right now, I think they're one of the best things going these days. (plus i threw in one bonus track, "ABC," that was on the US release, das is also gute)
hot chip - coming on strong
albums (folk rock version)
If you liked that track "Tam Lin" I posted a while back, you'll like this. 1969 combination of psychedelic rock, english folk and american blues produces solid, catchy, epic, beautiful LP. And Sandy Denny! Apparently Denny left fairport convention not too long after this album, and I don't seem myself investigating that period of the band any time soon. Sandy Denny is the bees knees.
fairport convention - unhalfbricking
albums (krautrock version)
I really like both Tago Mago and Ege Bayami, so I don't know what took me so long to get to Future Days, but it turns out I like it too. Mark me down as predictable I guess. Though I don't think it hits the highlights of say "Paperhouse" (which i just posted below), it may actually be the most consistently enjoyable Can album. Sometimes all the weirdo-acid-freakout stuff can get a bit tiring, and thankfully they seem to keep it on a tighter leash for this album, concentrating more on the groove. the groove!
can - future days
I like kraftwerk, but was curiously always a bit underwhelmed by them, considering all the praise heaped on them as "the godfathers of techno" and all that. Wasn't really all that caught up by their live double-cd they put out a while back, even though everyone else seem to love it. But this! This i like a whole lot. Lock in the motorik beat, cold teutonic vocals, occasional synthesized string, and I'm in! Connection to krautrock a lot clearer too, I would say. Seems the old Kraftwerk is where it's at, both of these albums are just great. [NOTE: my roommates (well, matt and russ) just told me to shut my door cuz they couldn't handle the kraftwerk I was pumping. philistines! go listen to some 10th generation watered-down mall-punk]
kraftwerk - trans europe express
kraftwerk - autobahn (yousendit link only!)
I actually downloaded this album by accident when i was trying to get the soundtrack to Aguirre, but it turned out to be a great find. I was kind of right anyway, given that half the album is comprised of tracks from the Aguirre soundtrack, but the other half has two other long moody tracks on it from somewhere else in the popol vuh back catalogue. Basically just 3 long (~20min) tracks plus the title track from Aguirre (only six minutes, psssh!), I think this is, again, the most consistently enjoyable Vuh album I've heard (lots of "consitently enjoyable" albums these days it seems. hence the full-album posting). The other track from the Aguirre soundtrack is a long, quiet piano piece, really quite beautiful, while the other two tracks are a bit more freeform, otherworldly ambience, but done with enough awareness of melody and rhythm to really create engrossing and hypnotic atmospheres. Quite varied, and highly enjoyable, this one.
popol vuh - gardens of the pharao / aguirre
Well, after a little poking around, looks like really, it's a combined release of these two albums (great covers!)
Lastly! Have you people heard avril lavigne's new single, "Girlfriend"? She's gone all girly dance-rock! Outstanding! Check it out, she's even doing choreographed dance moves...the video's kinda mean though isn't it? Oh well...
4 comments:
woah, that's a lot of music! I think i'll take a downloading break, this is taking too long... good stuff so far though.
but seriously, "girlfriend"?! That song was lame AND dumb.
Dumb: I'm sure it'll spawn great copy-cat "crimes" in 8th grades across the country. Clearly clever teen-pop marketing.
Lame: And people call techno repetitive? Was there anything BUT a chorus in that track? At least there's some creativity in techno... I could do better than that, "girlfriend".
sigh...
the megaupload links stay up for at least a month, I think, so you can take your time on those. the yousendit ones go down in a week though, so catch those...
but really dano, you are such an old fuddy-duddy. The chorus is AWESOME. Shouty nonesense-word choruses with catchy beats are what makes flowers bloom in the springtime ;). I'm not expecting some deep lyrical content (in fact i almost never expect that out of any music i listen to), but the song is FUN. Short, catchy, upbeat, what more do you want? It's distilled pop brilliance. And remember, repetition is good, dan :)
whatever, it was lame! didn't she already sing about "dancing with your boyfriend" and now she's singing about stealing your boyfriend? or was that some other lame pop act?
internet anonymity notwithstanding, what are you, a 12 year old girl??
I think you may be confusing Avril with Ashley Simpson, who did have a song called "boyfriend" which has a lot of similarities, in that both totally rule.
But as for the "12 year old girl" comment, that's pretty much a complete red-herring. Why should the intended audience for a song effect your enjoyment of it, provided you can find something in it to enjoy? I mean, I'm pretty sure beethoven never "intended" his music to be heard by an electrical engineer, as they did not exist when he was alive, yet this does not stop you from enjoying the work he's done.
Secondly, the entire issue of artistic "intent" is completely fraught with assumptions on the part of the listener. You're hearing the music and slotting it into something you think 12-year old girls would listen to, and then making an ideological decision that you don't want to be a part of that. What do you know about what Avril is thinking, who she intends this for? Why do you care? Listening to music that is supposedly inappropriate for you (ie, that you think "they" would disapprove of you listening to) is often a great way to discover new interesting sounds and expand and challenge your tastebuds.
so stop knocking avril! :p
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