Perfect song

I think I've found my favourite song of the summer.

Skylark - Tornadoe 1962

You're listening to this while tapping a sesh on the couch at a house party. At first you want to stay on the couch and listen because it's so musical and flowing, the melody rising out of subtlety and weaving around you, but soon stillness becomes uncomfortable and you start imagining how you would dance to it. It inspires restlessness... for real, makes you go nutz on the floor, yet occasionally scans back and forth from couch to floor, very dynamic-like.

I'm leaving for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival right now/hoping there will be some big systems.

Echo

Just got back from NYC, where Hockey is currently tearing it up. In like my last five minutes there I accidentally rolled up on a record store on Bowery which was so stacked with goods I nearly had a seizure. Ultimately self-control prevailed and I only got Arthur Russell's World of Echo, i.e. the ultimate summer post-dancefloor sweaty sex album. Delayed vocals and quiet instrumentation will kill you softly. It looks like I got a re-issue, i.e. it's not rare, except the entire D-side is an addendum of previously unreleased tracks... which I can't wait to hear. Currently stuck on this:

Arthur Russell - All Boy, All Girl

I don't have the rest of it on mp3, so here's one from The World of Arthur Russell (also a favourite).

Arthur Russell - Let's Go Swimming (Walter Gibbons mix)

The photo at the top is Nicky Siano, who opened the first proper dance club in NYC in the 70's/did some work with Arthur Russell. Read about it here.

Space

I find the above image fascinating (gets way bigger if you click on it, I think). It was the highest-tech rocket of its time, yet the launch pad retains the dinge of Russian appartment buildings. Note the wet cement, the rusty pipelines. Imagine being there, or better, being there because you have to man the rocket. Like waking up at 3am, shaving, I guess, cause that's hard without gravity, probably eating some space food to get you amped, then being trucked to this launch pad in butt fuck Siberia...

So far been staring at it for a solid half hour and listening to The Disco-Tech of Alexander Robotnick (his DJ mix from '04). It features some outlandish stuff, like a weird mix of Bizarre Love Triangle, some Tom Tom Club, et cetera. It's so good. Many of the songs are subtly remixed and feature additional space noises and freaky synths. The entire album seamlessly maintains an italo disco/space theme throughout.

Here are some songs off it:

Scotch Pinguin - Invasion
Bangkok Impact - Traveller

There is something exceedinly Russian about the first one. The second one is Bangkok Impact, nuff said. Genius. If you scroll down a few posts, I put up their remix of Robotnick's 'The Dark Side Of The Spoon', which has emerged as one of my favourite tracks ever, thanks to the pitch envelop-y laser-souding bits and the absolutely nutty Moog noises near the end (which now I think are just a really deep pitch bend). Overall, using deep LFO or pitch envelope or even messing with the pitch wheel guarantees a spacey sound, apparently. Here's an example of straight up manual pitch wheel tweaking:

Vast Aire - Tippin Dominos

And here's a square LFO:

Junior Boys - More Than Real

This puts me in a pinball machine as much as in space, but I really love it. The drum panning is intoxicating.

UPDATE:
Must've been pretty spaced yesterday cause I forgot the key track:

Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - 13 Moons

Eighties

Who cares that the 90's are back? Giving love to the 80's is still a-okay.

Camera Obscura - Eighties Fan

Note how the beat was lifted from the Jesus & Mary Chain's classic Just Like Honey. Can't argue with the original, but I do enjoy the updated vocals.

Here is a special eighties mash-up for those who enjoy dancing.

Thomas Dolby - One Of Our Submarines (Salz Mix) +
Kate Bush - Cloud Busting

Fuckers in the eighties were allowed to get away with pretty much anything for lyrics. "The winter boys are freezing in their spam time" or "You're like my yo yo/that glows in the dark/what made it special/made it dangerous". Are they Japanese?

Hot Chip

Science!

This is a clever nanoscale heat sink. My chip needs it, I'm honestly experiencing hair loss in my upper thighs from running Reaktor.

Mattafix - Passer By (Hot Chip Remix)

Great improvement on the original. Very nice sampling and such going on here. I sometimes like that, I like the way Four Tet does it also.

Linus Loves does the other mix on the Passer By single - also quite good. I prefer that by Hot Chip, since it cuts up the vocals more and I kind of hate the original vocals.

Bionic

Found this via artbots.org. Really elegant, I think. Perhaps I will leave a link to it on the side, as I love shit like this and could maybe even devote my life to it. Need to buy some more micro motors as some of mine are on loan/inside this.

Here's a mix to suit:

Bionic Bump Band - Chiggle +
Phil Kieran - Reject

Ben (Hockey) played me the latter - cooool synth. Both on their own are a bit plain, but mixed together they fill out. Maybe a little too housy for me, but reasonably bionic.

BBB also have a hilarious myspace.

Stereo Total

This is pretty gay:

Stereo Total - Sweet Charlotte

I really like Francoise Cactus' vocals, and just the high energy of it. This is off the Juke Box Alarm album, which has kind of a not-that-interesting cover, so here are some better ones:


That says 'Stereo Total'

Petunia

Usually I steal outrageous photos from "the internet", but this one, I'm afraid, is actually me.

Things not in the picture: multiple bottles of wine (in my stomach), blaring DJ Tiesto over my best drunken acapella rendition of Bone Crusher - Never Scared... apparently there are audio recordings from that night, which I must seize.

I really love this:
Claude Von Stroke - Deep Throat

Another choice track by this guy (The Whistler) appeared recently via Skulljuice, maybe the link is still live. I used it in a mix recently, but I won't post it, as I'm sure the 'juice will put it to better use in an upcoming mix. Hopefully?

Rhythm King

Ridetothis is so much more than dance music - it's also kind of sexy.

Luna - Rhythm King

Someone in this band knows how to work the knobs. The sounds in this are really, really detailed, yet not over the top. Actually, after I wrote that I looked it up and apparently in this song the non-standard-sounding stuff is a vibraphone, and other songs off the Penthouse album feature theremin and mellotron (which are all nutz, mellotron especially. L. Ron Hubbard and Sum 41 have one, what are you waiting for?)

Mm, my hand is kind of mangled, so I'll sum up like this:

Luna:Galaxie 500::Mojave 3:Slowdive::Spiritualized:Spacemen 3 (all kind of similar and of that era)

The previous post has been updated, so scroll down.

Tiga

How do you get into a show that went from zero-to-sold-out in a day?

Step 1: Pretend to be on the guest list. Line up and observe: level of security, type of stamp, likelihood that the thrice-removed friend of your friend who knows the promoters will come through. If low, proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Buy a Sharpie

Step 3: Go into a side street with your friends and practice drawing stamps. Try different techniques. Pressure printing seldom works, as does pointillism. Try both, just to be safe.

Step 4: Practice on someone who's wearing a watch or a wristband in case you make a mess when you try to rub it to make it look faded.

Step 5: Weakness in numbers. Probability of getting in is inversely proportional to number of candidates... obviously. Send your hottest friend ahead and wait for a phone call.

Step 6: Your brave friend was on the guest list, but it's still nice to get in for free. Strategy is key: there are two levels of security - door bouncers and ticket people. Getting past level 1 requires creativity, but the haggardly drawn-on stamps should take care of level 2, we're hoping.

Step 7: Now it's time to work your connections. Fix your hair, zip up your fly, and look like you really love dancing, so that your friend's thrice-removed promoter friend has pity on you.

Step 8: You're past the bouncers. You are so grateful; if you ever see this promoter person again you're buying her an imported beer.

Step 9: Split up so as to not make the fake stamp scheme obvious. Smoke, fire dirty stares at those still waiting in line, or call someone: "Hey, where are you? I'm inside Tiga... yeah I know it's sold out, fuckface" Don't say that, though - jinx.

Step 10: Time to confront the ticket people. Books not to read prior to attempting such a feat: The Cheating Culture by David Callahan. Things not to think about: how Nick's 17th iteration of drawing the stamp on your wrist is really fucking tappy and looks absolutely nothing like the real thing. Also, all your friends are already in, and if you don't get in, you will be banned from the club. Essentially, don't lose your balls.

Step 11: Lose your balls and pay the guest-list price (oh well).

The show itself was worth both the mental/moral anguish and the money. Tiga DJ'd, which I think is better than just hearing the Sexor album played through a sampler. He must cut his own vinyl because there were some nutzoid remixes that would be hard to pull off live. The remix of Tomas Andersson - 'Washing Up' was played twice (no mp3/don't feel like ripping it from the 12"), and MSTRKRFT snaked big time by playing Move My Body before Tiga got on. The club stayed packed till 4am, pretty abnormal for Toronto. Then of course the after-party.

Video:
Tiga - You Gonna Want Me

Update:

I wasn't sure what song to post along with this, the hits from Sexor have been blogged to death (I guess I contributed above). This is outstanding:

Tiga - Good As Gold/Flexible Skulls

I'm reposting my favourite dance song... with a little je ne sais quoi:

The Knife - Take My Breath Away (extended Mylo + je ne sais quoi remix)

Holy God, Tiga in T-dot tomorrow!