Girl/Boy Songs circa 2010

Florence and the Machine - "You Got the Love (The XX Remix)"


Alphabeat - "Hole In My Heart"

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.

WUT

MASSIVE AND BRILLIANT AND REAL

I'm not a common tart

I apologize that it has taken me so long to let all 4 of you know about Ost & Kjex's Cajun Lunch, one of my favorite albums of the year, and a treat for those of us who were close to giving up on the possibility of "quirky" as an adjective without a negative connotation. It's basically a house record with white-boy falsetto singing and lyrics mostly about (and sometimes from the point of view of) cheese, but it's well produced enough for all that to work. "The Yellow Man" is like the fifth different favorite song I've had on here, but it's the current one so it's the one I'ma use here. The drum programming is kind of bonkers, I think, in the way the hi-hats and sparely-used snares manage to hypnotize while not upstaging the (endearing, I think) vocals and then go kind of kitchen-sink interesting with a minute and a half to go. Cop this shit.

A palate cleanser

We do on occasion remember that we are at heart a music blog, so as a bit of glorious respite from Year-End Movie Madness we present a track from Henrik Schwarz, Ame, and Dixon's new release on Innervisions. It's called "Berlni-Karlsruhe-Express" and it's certainly helping us start our week off in a forward-thinking manner.

Oscars soon. Then who knows what'll happen.

Disco in the new era

I'm just gonna say that if you like Disco and/or House, you might want to be all over anything that Tensnake puts our right now. This is the A-side to his new 12" "Coma Cat" and I like it very much.

YMD's Super Sweet Sixteen: REMIX EDITION (part 2)

8. Coyote - "Too Hard (Aeroplane Remix)" (Is It Balearic? Recordings, 2007)
Aeroplane were unbelievably on fire in 2007 and 2008, and this is my favorite of their wonderful string of remixes and singles. It starts off as a nice little balearic disco track, and then suddenly shifts, with a sublime new riff at around 2'47 that happens to be one of the prettiest moments of the decade. From there it's off to the beach at sunrise and away with any sense of worry or dread you may have.

7. M83 - "Teen Angst (Luciano Remix)" (Goom, 2005)
Luciano's remix of M83s thoroughly maximalist "Teen Angst" starts off with a fading memory of that tracks adrenaline-fueled whir, and quickly forgets it in favor of some very Luciano sounding drums that are soon joined by M83's vocals. The next 6 minutes are quite pretty, as Luciano subtly plays with the drums while letting the vocals run their course, and then the reverbed strings come in and things get a touch sublime. Then the strings disappear again, and the drums switch up and finally, after eight minutes, seem to get a little more in touch with the vocals. It's a beautiful journey.

6. Rubies - "Room Without a Key (Version by Studio)" (Tellé, 2008)
Containing certainly the oddest time signature on the list (I count it as either four measures of 3/4 + one of 2/4 or just straight up 14/4), Studio's version "Room Without a Key" by California band Rubies is 9 minutes of gentle riffs varied and layered on top of gentle percussion. It shimmers in a somewhat self-aware way, but that doesn't stop it from sounding light sunlight peeking through your window shades as you wake up at the exactly perfect place and time.

5. Rufus Wainwright - "Tiergarten (Supermayer Remix)" (Polydor, 2007)
Superpitcher and Michael Mayer first take Rufus' "Tiergarten" and make it a glacially perfect ballad and only then, two and a half minutes in, do they give away that this is a dance remix. This is the Kompakt style, clean, anthemic, melodically interesting, at its very best. And fuck it, because it was only ever a white label and you're not going to be able to get the full 13 minute experience on YouTube, here's a download link at Mediafire.

4. Delia Gonzales & Gavin Rossum - "Relevee (Carl Craig Remix)" (DFA, 2006)
I've written about this one here rather recently, and I stand by that short blurb. It's just super amazing. It's the soundtrack to the best movie John Carpenter never directed. It's the most purposeful, glee-filled robot with a knowledge of the history of techno. I'll stop now.

3. Pär Grindvik - "Do Us Part (Len Faki Remix)" (Drumcode, 2007)
Released to relatively little critical fanfare at the end of 2007, Len Faki's remix of "Do Us Part" is one of my favorite techno tracks of the decade. It has a one beat bassline, it doesn't have any particularly big, hands-in-the-air type breakdowns or build up, yet it works perfectly for me as a pure dance monster, in the right mood, this destroys me.

2. Gwen Stefani - "What You Waiting For (Jacques Lu Cont Thin White Duke Mix)" (Interscope, 2004)
There were a few years in the mid-00s when everything Stuart Price (aka Jacques Lu Cont aka Thin White Duke) touched turned to gold. This mix of Gwen Stefani's "What You Waiting For" adds what might be the most perfect synth line of the decade to an already great song and transforms a heart-pounder in to a melancholic epic.

1. Paleface ft. Kyla - "Do You Mind (Crazy Cousinz Remix)" (Maximum Bass, 2008)
This is that song that (through this ILM thread) introduced me to one of my main late 00s obsessions, funky house, so it holds a very special place in my heart. I'm not sure if I even have the origins of this track 100% correct, but I guess it's a remix of a bassline track by Paleface (who is actually one half of Crazy Cousinz). I had to do some searching to find even a clip of the original. Anyways, the original seems to me completely irrelevant in the face of this beautiful, sexy, poppy, Soca-drenched, and most of all incredibly fun Crazy Cousinz mix. It's as good a representation as any of what I love about music at the end of the 00s, so it gets the number one spot (this is the version you want to listen to on Youtube).

Any ideas for what countdowns we should to do next?

YMD's Super Sweet Sixteen: REMIX EDITION (part 1)

The so-called remix culture of the last half decade has, I'm sure, brought a lot of people into dance music through remixes of their favorite pop or indie artists. With the availability of new, easy to obtain software and a million mp3 blogs, anyone can cut up their favorite track with a club beat or a different instrumental and have a dance-floor banger ready to go. But, this democratization of dance, as wonderful in theory as anything that allows more people access to creativity and active participation, has also created a lot of incredibly cheap and half-assed sounding music. So this list is free of bootlegs, not because I am elitist enough to think that that process cannot create good music, but because to my ears there were simply a whole lot of "professionals" doing this shit a lot better.

I specified Dance remixes because Rap remixes are a whole different thing unto themselves (as are R. Kelly remixes), so maybe we'll get back to those later. But for now, on we go with my favorite house, techno, electro, and disco versions of the decade, starting off, of course, with me cheating by throwing down some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions (alpha by remixer):
- Aeroplane's mixes of Friendly Fires' "Paris" and Grace Jones' "Williams Blood"
- Ame's remix of Etienne Jaumet "Repeat After Me", hypnotic 3/4 techno
- Carl Craig's mixes of "Part of Me" by Ayumi Hamasaki, Faze Action's "In the Trees," and Francesco Tristano's "the Melody"
- the famous DFA remix of Le Tigre's "Deceptacon"
- DJ Koze's off-beat remix of Matthew Dear's "Elementary Lover"
- Ink & Needle's futuristic remix of Amox and Atle's "A Witch Kiss"
- the Joakim Italo Dub of "Budapest" by Poni Hoax
- the M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade version of Laurie Anderson's classic "O Superman"
- Martyn's house-influenced dubstep remix of "Seven" by Fever Ray
- Kris Menace's French House take on Roisin Murphy's "Overpowered"
- Theo Parrish's gauzy, kick-less remix of Jill Scott's "Slowly Surely"
- Radio Slave's merciless remix of "Deer in the Headlights" by Chelonis R. Jones
- Tobias Thomas and Michael Mayer's remix of Ada's cover of "Maps"

16. the Whitest Boy Alive - "Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)" (Modular, 2008)
Arguably less heralded than his partner Alan Braxe, never mind the holy robots, Fred Falke released by favorite remix by a French House mainstay this decade. He turns Erland Oye and co's bedroom funk song "Golden Cage" into an epic of yearning. This is just on the right side of maudlin, dipping its toe in to that pool more than occasionally.

15. Kylie Minogue - "Come Into My World (Fischerspooner Remix)" (Parlophone, 2002)
I was late enough to dance music to miss both Electroclash and most of its backlash, but this is certainly the best thing I've heard from Fischerspooner. But that somewhat cheap sounding bass line is somehow perfect to offset that lushness that is as much a part of Kylie's persona as her music from around this time.

14. the Knife - "We Share Our Mother's Health (Trentemøller Remix)" (Rabid Records, 2006)
I always seem to forget how great this is when I'm not listening to it. And then it comes on, and wow. The beat to this one is fairly straight ahead, but all the minor syncopation Trentemøller throws in on the hi-hats and toms is great fun. And then the handclap assisted breakdown comes in and that is just mindblowingly great.

13. LCD Soundsystem - "Tribulations (Lindstrøm Mix)" (DFA/EMI, 2005)
Lindstrøm's "Tribulations" remix is a great example of the man's gift at going out towards space while still sounding organic and loose. There seem to be two basslines working together, a big funky one providing the main riff and robotic, super-repetitive one holding things steady (and coming to the fore during the repetition of the titular lyric). Like most of Lindstrøm's best work, this one is constantly evolving, moving, and fun.

12. Cortney Tidwell - "Don't the Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan's Objects in Space Mix)" (2006)
Ewan Pearson takes Cortney Tidwell's soft, lovely voice and takes in on a blissful ride for just short of 12 minutes. This could hardly be any more lush. About seven minutes in this comes to a head with these shimmering, overpowering synths that almost match Cortney's voice for loveliness, until her cooing comes in after the beat comes back and puts any doubt to rest.

11. Jose James - "Desire (Moodymann Remix)" (Brownwood Recordings, 2008)
This is a house torch song, and one of the most beautiful things I've heard this year. It's a late night heartbreaker, this one. Moodymann's drums, as well as the space without them, are sublime. This is a track that breathes, and not just because of its breathy vocals.

10. Shackleton - "Blood On My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypso Now Mix)" (Skull Disco, 2007)
Like many Villalobos tracks, this takes its sweet time (18 minutes to be exact) and is dark as night. It's also kind of a masterpiece, and one of the first great meeting points between dubstep and minimal techno. It's kind of one of those things you have to experience, extremely detailed and rewarding to the patient while being quite moving at the same time

9. Nathan Fake - "The Sky Was Pink (James Holden Remix)" (Border Community, 2004)
A monster of atmosphere, an amazing example of the potential of techno to be unsettling and at the same time make you want to dance as hard as you ever have before. Holden takes Fake's original, a cool track but not a dancefloor banger, and pushes all the right buttons to make it a classic.

Part two coming soon with more beats, long tracks, syncopation, and sublime moments of beauty.

Let it all go

88. Basement Jaxx - "Romeo" (XL Recordings, 2001)

So I saw Basement Jaxx DJ at Santos Party House over the weekend and despite the fact that I was running around handing out flyers and not drinking most of the time they were quite amazing. It's been a long time since I've seen a crowd that excited to dance in New York, never mind found it that hard to move around at a dance venue. Most everything they dropped, from their hits to stuff I didn't recognize to that huge A-Trak remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the odd dubstep tune came off (I'm trying to forget the few minutes of a Kings of Leon remix). They had a singer/MC with them that was super charismatic, and hands were in the air all night.

They didn't play "Romeo", at least not while I was around, but for some reason it's the one song of theirs that has stuck with me most in the last few weeks. The very special moment at the end of the 90s and the first part of this decade when the Jaxx and Daft Punk were both approaching pop-dance perfection from opposite sides of the English Channel links the two groups together in my head inextricably (at least it has so far), and while I've probably listened to more of the French robots in the past few years, the Jaxx remain very special to me, so much brilliant and varied silliness in their ever-changing style. This song's super stiff bass never sounds quite right to me at first, and then I still start moving. And the vocals are actually kind of restrained when faced with the madness going on around them. And the "let it all go" refrain ends up being so touching. Perfect pop-dance madness all over the place really.

There Will Be Sweat

Sooooo, we're throwing this party, y'kno? It's called There Will be Sweat and it's gonna be in our spacious loft in Bushwick on July 11th. I went ahead and made a little promo mix of some of the jams I might be playing, with the obligatory MJ, some UK Funky, some Good Ole' American House, and a few other tracks for dat ass. Check that shit out and we'll see ya at the party.

There Will Be Sweat Promo Mini-mix (mediafire link)

Tracklist:

- Michael Jackson - "Rock With You (Frankie Knuckles Remix)" (Epic, 1995)
- Tensnake - "In the End (I Want You to Cry)" (Running Back, 2009)
- Matthew Dear - "Elementary Lover (DJ Koze Remix)" (Ghostly International, 2007)
- Jazmine Sullivan - "Need U Bad (Crazy Cousinz Remix)" (Crazy Cousinz, 2009)
- Donae'o - "Party Hard" (My-ish, 2009)
- Sis - "Trompeta" (Sei Es Drum, 2008)
- Green Velvet - "The Case of the Lost Jacksters" (Relief, 2009)
- Electrik Red - "Friend Lover" (Def Jam, 2009)

Up to 11: May Flowers

So there is an Imeem epidemic in which lotsa songs are getting cut down to 30 seconds in an embedded playlist. So click here to listen to the whole playlist proper. Anyways, a roughly contested playlist this month, with eight or nine very good tracks getting cut. Here's what we have for you this month:

- Ciara's Fantasy Ride is awesome. And "High Price" is in a few senses "Oh Part 2," those senses being Ludacris, the grinding machine beat, and the Atlanta reppin'. This is a Dream/Tricky production and is quiet odd, even for Ciara. A lot of it is in sung in this weird chirpy voice and the pre-chorus has what to me sound like hints of M.I.A. It's dope.

- The Future of the Left (ex-Mclusky reppin') has a new album coming out, and it fires right out of the gate with the massive "Arming Eritrea". Guitars on a rampage.

- Green Velvet drops yet another Chicago house gem with "The Case. of the Lost Jacksters". His Prince fixation is in full effect, to great effect.

- I've written about Kelly Clarkson's "I Do Not Hook Up" here, but it has to be repped for on YMD as well. King sized chorus on this one.

- Rick Ross' Deeper Than Rap is another solid LP. Rawse has somehow developed into an even more cartoonish character since his last album, but the beats are solid all the way through and, while no one's accusing him of being the GOAT, he's not a bad rapper either. The highlight though is the all-star "Maybach Music 2", with Kanye, T-Pain, and Weezy. Ye rips it, and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League comes through with an appropriately huge beat. BAWSE!

- Redman & Method Man's forthcoming Blackout 2 has me kinda psyched, not least of all because of this recently leaked collabo with Ghost and Rae. New York/New Jersey stand up.

- You know we get excited when news of The Field making a new record comes out. Apparently Yesterday & Today is gonna be out at the end of the month, and this is the first single, "The More That I Do". Hooky, maximalist, pretty much what we expected, this really is huge, shameless, and wonderful.

- On a slightly more restrained note, I've been bouncing happily along to this new Mountain People release for the last few weeks. Could really see this going well outdoors this summer.

- New potty-mouthed Nina Sky hotness is "On Some Bullshit". Could really see this going well indoor with neon lights this summer.

- Swedish vocalist El Perro Del Mar put out a mini-LP produced by Rasmus Hägg of balearic wizards Studio and I got all excited. Then I heard it and I chilled out in the best way possible. Deep, groovy, and as emotional as you'd expect from EPdM. "L is For Love" is our choice cut here.

- Finally, something we hope to hear at this summer's P-fork Festival, the Flaming Lips doing a wonderful cover of Madonna's "Borderline" on Warner Bros' preposterously named Covered: A Revolution in Sound compilation. It brings the joy. Check the video here. Check the video.

Fill up your ears.

The Bright Forest

This might be a bit redundant, cuz I feels like a lot of the folks that read this site are fwends that already follow me on the Tweets, but I cannot stress enough how important it is that, if you have any interest in house music, African music, or dancing, you get over here and download this Culoe De Song mix from the blessed Resident Advisor Podcast series. Kid's a prodigy from South Africa, and this is easily my favorite DJ mix of the year so far. Vital.

French Autobahn Techno/Electro

205. Vitalic - "La Rock 01" (from the Poney EP, International Deejay Gigolo Records, 2001)

It's overwhelming, it is. Vitalic is very good at simulating the feeling of speed, and I can't imagine hearing this in a club and not just turning into a crazy robot hummingbird of some sort. It's relentless, except for that one bit where it relents, but even then you know for a fact that he's about to turn it back up at any second and you better be prepared. Later, on the OK Cowboy album, Vitalic would sandwich "La Rock 01" between two mostly schaffel (4/4 with triplets) tracks and, in retrospect, that might have made it both stand out even more and given us a much needed breath after it.

Change Your Plans For Saturday

So, friends, I know I'm always like house this and techno that and disco this and dance that, but listen to this one. This Saturday at the always wonderful Studio B is the craziest line-up I've seen in forever, reppin' the Detroit-Chicago-NY dance axis harder than I've ever seen it repped, and sure to promise fun, fun, fun and more fun.

Opening the night will be NYC's own Tim Sweeney, host of East Village Radio's famous Beats in Space, DFA ally, and all around dance expert who I'm sure will bring enough disco jams to make you do the bump at least 20 times before strutting to the bar and having a drink with the 5-10 [people of your preferred gender] you've picked up so far that night.

Now, that in general would guarantee a pretty sweet night, but the two DJs reppin the Midwest raise the status of the party from "should be really fun" to "holy shit what a lineup!" Second up is Juan Atkins, a man that is to Techno what Chuck Berry is to Rock and Roll, what Shikibu or Cervantes or whoever are to the Novel, what the ten shots of White Horse are to losing my wallet. Juan Atkins, along with his friends Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, created the wonderful sound of Techno in Detroit in the early 80s, and he has steady stayed making creative music for over 25 years. With Cybotron and Model 500, Atkins made machines funk like nobody else, and the dancefloor will be full of humans doing the same.

Model 500 - "No UFOs"(mp3) (Mediafire)

Finally, from my hometown of Chicago, we have Green Velvet, who I've never had the opportunity to seen live, but is by all accounts a great fucking time whether he's DJing or doing more of a live show thing (I assume this will be a DJ set, but I'm not certain). Velvet's been holding down Chicago House since the early 90s, combining hard jacking house with one of the more entertaining personalities in dance music. Expect lots of moving and sweating; expect fun.

Here's a vid for a Green Velvet track that I'd imagine you've heard before in some place:


Anyways, for reals, Studio B on Saturday, no better place to be. Post-apocalyptic warehouse Brooklyn hoppin'.

edit: also, Thursday at the new Santos Party House joint down on Lafayette (look at this summer lineup so far!) Vice is throwing a party with free booze and a few bands, including the Vivian Girls, who I had the pleasure of seeing last weekend and who are awesome. RSVP here.