I might not feel like choosing a pick tomorrow, so in the spirit of laziness, you get two today. Happy Saturday!
Acid In My Fridge – Dinky A DJ-friendly single, the Berlin-influenced Acid In My Fridge was this year’s infectious Burning Man track. With the crazies in my camp playing it at every opportunity, the kids in the Flying Monkey Pub were going crazy for it. And, on repeated relistenings, this hyper-minimalist piece of electronic bleepy-bloopy music stands up to the scrutiny we never paid it at the time. Probably best saved for those times when melody just isn’t your thing.
Smile Around The Face – Everything Ecstatic – Four Tet The boy Hebden done it again. This masterpiece of pitch shift, sloppy sideways synthesis and just mental, mental noises. It sounds like someone booting up the computer that runs The Chemical Brothers (what, you didn’t think they were humans, did you?) and it’s twice as powerful. I defy you not to tap your toe to this one.
Special extra weekend bonus:
Bionic – Placebo – Placebo. Defining a new sound isn’t easy, and Placebo hit this one square on, in what many feel is still their best album, the somewhat ancient Placebo. That was a long time ago and those kids are older now, but their sound was raw and unexpected. The disspirited 17-year-old electronpusher, once upon a time, dressed up in black jeans, black teeshirt, black hair dye and black eyeliner, listened to this track and hung around a deserted shopping centre with her equally-retarded little buddies; the difference was that she was listening to this because it was just really, really good music. That’s not a drum machine you hear; the inhuman precision comes from Steve Hewitt (now, sadly, no longer with Placebo) and the wailing, pining vocals come from Luxembourg’s sluttiest export to date, Brian Molko. The anguish wasn’t matched until Ion – You Don’t Care About Us – Placebo – an electronically-driven, pulsating, echoing journey into the barren wastelands between downtempo and rock. Somehow, it survives the frozen night, the ice weasels and the temptation to put an unnecessary vocal on the track, with ethnic sounds over crooning synthesis.
There, that’s four to keep you going… have a great weekend!
