Unpiano | Music Blog

The new thing in the UK is a sort of mix between Chicago Juke, Baltimore Club, and post-dubstep half-time beats.  Think short vocal snippets repeated ad nauseam over insanely fast and syncopated 808 beats.  It’s actually surprisingly fresh, especially considering how derivative it is.

Addison Groove had something of a hit a couple years back with Footcrab, a bizarrely funky tune that really showed his Juke and B-more club influence.  To further reinforce this, he features Philly / Baltimore heavy hitter Spank Rock on two songs.  Not every song on the album is a bona fide club banger, but the ones that work, work really fucking well.  Bad Things is probably more in line with what Spank Rock fans wanted from his last album; the frantic grooves are infectious and the sound set is classic.

Roughly 50% of the fun of this album comes from feeling your brain rattle in your skull from an 8-foot bass bin, so please don’t even try this on ipod headphones or your macbook speakers.  If you can’t feel the 808 kick drum, you’re not going to understand this one at all.  If you have a decent system though, crank it and have an impromptu dance battle with your roomates; Footwork or Hip Roll battles, your choice.

Addison Groove – Bad Things (ft Spank Rock)
Addison Groove – Skylight
Addison Groove – Entropy

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Bonus:
Video for Bad Things (it’s badass)

After a long 4 year wait, the Berlin-based duo Modeselektor returns with their 3rd LP, this time on their own label, Monkeytown.  The album is bizarre and really runs the gamut of styles, but you can hear the constant undertones of angular German electronic production.  Heavy electro tunes like Evil Twin showcase the duo’s production skill with the high energy lead synth playing in odd time against the rhythm.  This is instant classic techno, but it’s a little too weird to go mainstream.  This is highlighted by their choices of guest vocalists; in addition to the usual suspect Thom Yorke, avant garde rappers Busdriver and Antipop Consortium lay down abstract verses over spacey Techno.

All in all the album sounds more like a collection of singles, each an experiment on a concept, and that’s great for an electronic group accustomed to releasing singles and EPs.  Modeselektor is on tour supporting the album, and I highly recommend going to see them live.  I caught their show in Montreal over the summer, and it was absolutely insane; they didn’t even hit the stage until 1:30am.  Pre-sale went quickly, and I won’t be surprised if it sells out, so I’d get a ticket sooner than later.  SF people, I’ll see you at 1015 Folsom, Friday the 13th!

Modeselektor – Shipwreck (ft Thom Yorke)
Modeselektor – German Clap
Modeselektor – Berlin

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Bonus:
Video for Evil Twin (featt Otto von Schirach)

Hey look, its little Inga Humpe from the German art-punk outfit Neonbabies from a few posts back, all grown up and off to covering British dance hits. Sometimes, when I re-read the things I write, I hate that I always say things like “it sounds like ‘x’ mixed with ‘x’”, but I’m a really lazy writer, especially after a few beers, so I’m going to say “it sounds like the Chromatics mixed with early OMD, covering the Pet Shop Boys”. But this time I’ll have to add “except it sounds about ten times cooler than anything those two stone-faced twinks ever did”.

Remember the first Spank Rock album from a few years back? It basically broke “B-more / Philly Club” to the masses and the crew enjoyed some mild success with tours and DJ mixtapes. Years passed and we never got a proper follow-up; the producer, XXXChange was doing things with Mad Decent, and MC Spank Rock (as he is now known?) just kind of disappeared. Well apparently, he was in Berlin, recording some high-energy avant-rap with European Techno wizards, Boys Noize. It’s like everything good about Major Lazer without any of the bullshit irony or culture co-opting; minimal raps over house and dancehall beats with heavy dance-club influence.

The new album gets bonus points for the incredible name: Everything is Boring and Everything is a Fucking Liar. Boys Noize produced most of the tracks on the album, though XXXChange is back for a few. It’s a change of pace from the formulaic B-more sound, but keeps the high energy dance vibe perfectly. The fact-paced, filthy raps fit perfectly over the monster analog synths and booming 808 beats. Glad to hear this bizarro MC doing something new while retaining his integrity. Side note: I can’t believe nobody sampled Can’s “Vitamin C” in such a major way until now, but check out Energy for the best possible use of that sample.

Spank Rock – Energy
Spank Rock – Ta Da
Spank Rock – #1 Hit

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Bonus:
Spank Rock – #1 Hit (This is literally the best/weirdest video I’ve seen all year)

//photo from back in the day – sorry, they took better photos back then..

The Rapture is back on DFA, which means you need to run to the closet and pull out your dancing shoes from 2003 because this motherfucker is gonna burn down. The band comes back dancey as ever thanks to some production by Philippe Zdar of Phoenix, though it’s hard to get down exactly the same way without bassist Matt Safer’s crazy energy (why did they have to call him out like that in Pitchfork? Dang..) Listening to this record makes me wish it was 2003 again and I could squeeze a 23-year-old me into a sweaty, packed club and go crazy. Does that mean that this record will only appeal to my nostalgic side and young people won’t be able to relate? Either way, I will listen to it all week..

The Rapture – In The Grace Of Your Love
The Rapture – Come Back To Me
The Rapture – Miss You

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Sacramento CA has a long history of dance bands coming out of their small but vibrant punk and experimental scene; !!! (chk, chk, chk), Outhud and Free Blood all came from the same circle of D.I.Y. punks in the early 90′s. Buk Buk Bigups might be the next wave to carry that torch. With its young members firmly entrenched in the Sacto punk and experimental scene of now, they’re taking their art-mess education to the dance floor. The original version of “Hot Mess” (from their fantastic debut 12″ on Weird Forest) takes off like an outtake of Sparks’ “Beat The Clock” (from the Georgio Moroder years). Despite all the influence from the No-Wave obscurities, Buk Buk Bigups never flies off into experimental no-wheres-ville the way the Contortions or DNA did, instead they season accessible dance hits with hints of skronk and weirdness, but only just enough to anchor them to their roots without clearing the floor. A hot live band (yeah a band, not a sequencer and a dude with a microphone), expect more good things from them when they hit the road this spring.

Buk Buk Bigups – Hotter Mess

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Bonus:
Buk Buk Bigups – Endless Itch (video)

Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s Press Color LP is a fantastic slice of the New York No Wave scene of the late ’70s. Her punchy, minimalist approach to dance music cozies right up to work of contemporaries like The Contortions, Liquid Liquid and D.N.A. These two tracks are practically kissing-cousins to the best of like-minded art-punks the Bush Tetras. Highly recommended for any basement show dance off.

Lizzy Mercier Descloux – Fire
Lizzy Mercier Descloux – Wawa

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I grabbed up this 12″, stoked to think a new Chromatics album was on the way after practically wearing out my copy of their Night Drive LP. This single had me from the first listen, another wispy pop hit dolled-up with the downtempo vibe of Giorgio Moroder’s soundtracks (or the self-composed soundtracks John Carpenter did for his early movies). Impatient, I found a rip of their upcoming In Shining Violence LP and you know what? It sucks. After a sweet intro and this killer single, the sexy hot voice of front woman Ruth Radelet disappears from the record entirely (as does the aforementioned italo-disco influence) and is replaced with – a dude. A dude with an amateur band-dude voice singing over some pretty bland post-punk. Total bummer. At least they eeked-out this smoking hot 12″ before blowing it.

Chromatics – In The City

Chromatics – In The City (Video)

I could have posted any of 50 different Fela Kuti songs here, they all have a similar tempo, similar themes and a similar swing – and they all rip. Fela mixed African styled jazz & funk with an upbeat West African music style called highlife to pioneer a style of music he called afrobeat. He became hugely popular in Africa, not just for his music but for his social and political views, and his constant middle-finger to the endless succession of military-based dictatorships in his native Nigeria and throughout Africa. With his family, bandmates and others connected to his music, he formed a commune-style compound complete with a club and recording studio, which he declared independent from the state of Nigeria (Ouch! FUCK you Nigeria!). With the fame came the pussy, and Fela ended up with so many wives (I think around 100 total) he had to rotate them from year to year, so that he only “technically” had 12 wives at one time. Unfortunately, one of his many many wives gave him AIDS, which he suffered from secretly until he died from AIDS-related complications in 1997. As a former boss (and suspected wife-beater) once told me, “if you’re going to have 100 wives, you’d better know how to regulate”.

Fela Kuti & The Africa 70 – Who’re You

Sort of can’t wait for the new Caribou album which seems like it’s gonna be filled with dance music. I guess that’s one of the awesome things about having complete control of your band. If you make some indie rock albums and then want to rock the fuck out on the dance floor the next time around, there is no one to tell you otherwise. Good thing too, or else we would have missed this single.

Caribou – Odessa