Hercules and Love Affair; newly poised DFA darlings and trad disco aficionados have released their debut LP across the land.
Their albm, self titled and draped in grand stylings, brings original disco sounds back to a scene full of neu electronic imitations. With one foot firmly in in the disco camp, and the other in 90's house, this album is brimming with diamond studded bass grooves and features Antony of Antony & The Johnsons on several cuts including leading single, "Blind". We've been playing this out since picking it up some time ago.
Apparently the name is a reference that even the most tough, seemingly unbreakable creatures are as susceptible to broken hearts as any.
Hercules and Love Affair - Blind
Hercules and Love Affair - Raise Me Up
Hercules & Love Affair Myspace
Monday, March 31, 2008
Hercules and Love Affair
Home Video
Most definitely one of my standout albums for 2006 was Home Video's, No Certain Night or Morning. It was a shudderingly and intensely good debut offering from the NY duo. Dark soundscapes and brilliantly textured songs of haunted, dark places filled my earphones.
I was even lucky to catch a live performance of them at the Basement sometime in early 2007.
Commonly compared to Thom Yorke & Radiohead, Home Video have a similar vocal style and a shared propensity to create stunning, intense and sometimes macabre but strangely uplifting music.
They have risen in 2008 to release a new single called "I Can Make you Feel It" which follows in similar directions and is equally compelling, dark and impressive.
Home Video - I Can Make You Feel It
Home Video Myspace
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Magistrates
Magistrates, out of Essex UK, are another new band currently making me giddy.
Fusing their indie guitar stylings with falsetto vocals a la Prince or.......Justin Timberlake, Magistrates would have the girls swooning with their smooth-and-we-know-it groove and undoubtedly sexy sound that is made for the "mind, feet and hips."
With maybe just a hint of Klaxons, particularly during parts of their song The Inbetweens, they are another UK indie band on the rise and playing support to touring heavyweights despite them having no record or EP to show.....yet.
Highly recommending this lot.
Magistrates - Inbetweens
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Virgins
Not to be confused with the band of the same name from Sweden, The Virgins combine Strokes-esque indie cool with a funk groove and recently made a splash at Austin's SXSW music festival as well as finding their way in to the pages (and hearts) of a number of media outlets including hype bible NME.
I'm digging the catchy guitar pop and hipster swagger of songs like "Rich Girls", and "Love is Colder than Death" off their debut self titled which you can buy here.
The Virgins - Love is Colder than Death
Sunday, March 23, 2008
THE TWELVES
Well, it certainly has been a busy couple of months, and because of this it seems as though i haven't made a post in fucking ages. So why not get back into the swing of things with a celebration of my favourite disco-electro producers at the moment; The Twelves.
Brazilians João Miguel and Luciano Oliveira make up the duo, who were relatively unknown until the middle of last year, when they completed a remix for Londoner M.I.A. This put them on the map, and since then they have been making a name for themselves in the electro scene all over the world, completing remixes for various big name artists such as Yelle, Thieves Like Us, Black Kids and even Kylie Minogue. Their biggest success was a remix which was included on New Young Pony Club's single "Get Lucky" and was very well received with rave reviews all over the net.
I have included two of their remixes below which I believe are great examples of The Twelves sound. You can tell they take influence from successful French electro artists such as Justice and Daft Punk but have a distinct disco feel to their songs which seems to be getting more and more popular with labels such as DFA pushing the genre. They also have a live aspect to their act, where they use laptops, synths and samplers to create their own remixes on the fly, so I have also included a video of them doing their NYPC remix plus a Radiohead remix live.
Most of The Twelves tracks are available for free download from their Myspace, and the NYPC remix is available for purchase here.
Erlend Oye - Sudden Rush (The Twelves Remix) (YSI)
Asobi Seksu - Thursday (The Twelves Remix) (YSI)
Friday, March 21, 2008
Black Kids
New video for Black Kids track "I'm not going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You". This featured on their free downloadable EP Wizard of Ahhhs and is the first single off their July 7 released album.
Happy Easter! Hope the Easter Bunny is good to you...
Monday, March 3, 2008
Pnau vs Breakbot
This little ditty has been released to the internerd ahead of a tour that both acts will be appearing at on April 11 in Sydney at the Enmore Theatre.
Tour dates as follows:
| The Great Northern | Byron Bay, New South Wales | ||
| The Met | Brisbane, Queensland | ||
| Coolongatta Hotel | Gold Coast, Queensland | ||
| Recactory Hall, University of Canberra | Canberra, Australian Capital Territory | ||
| Wollongong University Bar | Wollongong, New South Wales | ||
| Enmore Theatre | Sydney, New South Wales | ||
| Panthers Newcastle | Newcastle, New South Wales |
Pnau, known widely as one of Australia's most prolific dance producers will be showcasing their latest self titled album release in live format, backed by one of our favouritest-ever French electro producers in Breakbot, who we blogged here.
The result? A signature cut up electro groover over a cute little kiddie choir chorus that is pure joy packaged in an mp3.
Pnau - Baby (Breakbot Remix)
Pnau Myspace
Breakbot Myspace
The Ting Tings
Out of Salford, UK come The Ting Tings. And pure, blissful, fun-soaked, dancey pop they do produce.
Boy/girl duo Jules & Katie were born out of a Salford art collective, just a year ago playing house parties and releasing super limited edition 7" singles before, as legend has it, the boss of Sony America stopped by one of said house parties, sat on the floor and.......the rest of history.
Damn fun indie music this is. I can't get enough of that little off-beat guitar riff. Ahhh.
The Ting Tings - Great DJ
The Ting Tings Myspace
MGMT
I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open due to yesterday's Laneway Festival and subsequent midnight picnic in Hyde Park so the creative juices are lacking somewhat. But, I've taken the first opportunity I've had to post up a couple of tracks from Brooklyn's MGMT (pronounced Management).
Now and again a band/artist will pop up out of nowhere and turn my attention from the swarms of others being flaunted on the radio or on blogs. This is one of these examples and their eclecticly brilliant mish mash of an album is making my brain buzz.
I'm still making my way through their debut album Oracular Spectacular so finding the right adjectives and references to explain their sound is proving difficult.
Standout track for me so for is "Electric Feel" which is textured pop with a slow disco balearic groove, pan flutes and a catchy melody. It's reminding me in ways to to recent releases by The Tough Alliance or Studio.......but skipping to the next track I'm getting strains of Arcade Fire, Of Montreal and even Connor Oburst.
There's cute acoustic tracks, buzzing synths as backing noise under an incredible array of hooky organ riffs, camp pop, weird jungle sounds, country yarns and druggy psychedelia.
Anyway, I haven't been excited as this about finding a band for a while. I'm actually gushing.
MGMT - Electric Feel
MGMT - Time to Pretend
MGMT - Kids
MGMT Myspace
Watch "Electric Feel" Video
Available to Buy Now on Itunes
