Me to the rescue

Deerhoof vs. Evil is really quite good.

Fluttering

Chicago House icons Cajmere (aka Curtis Jones aka Green Velvet) and Gene Farris have put out another two track EP (cop here) of the type of jackin' yet fluttery house that I hope will carry me into the spring. The video they've uploaded for a preview of the track is basically, well, let's just say my parents were ballroom dancers.

Beast mode

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Here's the title track from the Meltdown EP Ill Blu dropped today and it's an absolute heater. You can't really mess with these guys right now as far as rhythmic intensity, but "Meltdown" isn't completely free of subtlety either, like that twinkle that comes in around 1:55 and reappears once later on and can't help but remind me (is it just me?) of Mary J and Meth's "You're All I Need". I was kinda eh on their Hyperdub single last year, but this one places Ill Blu right back at the forefront of what I'm checking for these days.

Ah-ah-ah-ah-I

I purposefully didn't embed the video, because its boilerplate brattiness honestly makes these lyrics sound even more boring than they already are. That said, I've been jamming this song a whole lot for the last month because the chorus kills me, mainly through those non-verbal runs (I've also been playing the ultra-classic "I'm With You" a lot since the Rihanna song that samples it came out). I've never been too invested in Avril as a persona, but when she gets hold of a great hook she can definitely sing it. Song of the month for January 2011?

Snap reactions after listening to the Britney single 5 times

- Definitely hits harder than I expected it to.

- Full of sounds that I don't really like

- The chorus is full on 90s Euro-trance-pop-whatever. As far as contemporary stuff, it's much closer to mining the same territory as Cascada than Gaga, Katy, or Ke$ha.

- The breakdown will code as dubstep because of the wobble (and because dubstep is becoming just popular enough with certain folks that something will be able to "code as dubstep" in 2011), but rhythmically it's not at all extreme for, like, a slightly R&B leaning pop song.

- I actually really like the breakdown, Brit sounds great on it.

- Whoa trance buildup

- If this is actually just Max Martin and Dr. Luke, what the hell did Britney's actual sessions with Tiesto sound like? (did that even ever happen?) Actually, with the breakdown being what it is, it's like Luke and Max were just like, "she's working with Tiesto and Rusko? We can just do all of that ourselves!")

- I guess I don't like this very much, but if a track can fairly accurately be described as Dr. Luke doing Tiesto, I guess the odds of me liking it aren't very high.