MP3: “Circle Square Triangle” – Test Icicles

Staying close to home and working once again with Domino Records, he put out his debut single, “Galaxy of the Lost”, through the label last summer. Featuring the amazing “Waiting Game” stealing mad thunder on the B-side, it was one of the best debuts of the summer and established Hynes as one of the most promising talents in London’s burgeoning folk scene. Among Lightspeed Champion’s biggest fans is one Conor Oberst, who personally invited Hynes (who is originally from Houston) to his Omaha, Nebraska studio to record his debut album with Saddle Creek resident producer Mike Mogis. That record, titled Falling Off The Lavender Bridge, is due for an early 2008 release in the UK with a US release to follow shortly thereafter. Only two singles have been culled from it so far (the other being the four-act, 10+ minute epic “Midnight Surprise”), but their excellence – combined with the remarkable quality of their B-sides – suggests Lavender Bridge could be one of the best alt-country records since Bright Eyes’ own I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning in 2005. In fact, Hynes’ best track to date just might be the aforementioned B-side, “Waiting Game”, and that’s not even a lock to make the final cut for the record.

MP3: “Waiting Game” – Lightspeed Champion ((highly recommended))

There has been shit talked about how Lightspeed’s tracks are made on the female backing vocals often found on his recordings, but such accusations are clearly unjust when one considers the brilliance of “Waiting Game” and “No Surprise” (on which backing vocals are noticeably absent), easily two of his best tracks to date. That said, such doubts are somewhat understandable considering the incredible vocal talent Hynes surrounds himself with – Emmy The Great and Florence (of Florence and the Machine) are frequent collaborators – but its still Hynes emotive vocal stylings and impressive guitar work that have gotten him where he is today.

With the “Galaxy of the Lost” and “Midnight Surprise” singles already having earned him notoriety in the UK scene, Dev is set to make his American debut next week with the Galaxy of the Lost EP. The five-track EP culls the stand-out B-sides from his two single releases (”Waiting Game” and an acoustic version of “No Surprise”), alongside the title track and two cover songs – a brilliant rendition of “The Flesh Failures” from the musical Hair and a decent take on former ELO frontman Jeff Lynne’s “Xanadu”. Emmy The Great shows why she’s one of the most coveted backing vocalists in the London folk scene (even if her own material can’t quite stack up to that of her collaborators quite yet) on “Flesh Failures” and “Galaxy of the Lost”, but it’s Florence who really took the tracks to a whole new level when she supported Dev in his recent live session for BBC 6Music. In fact, the 6Music rendition of “Galaxy of the Lost” actually surpasses the brilliance of the original for me.

Lightspeed Champion, Live @ BBC 6Music
1. “Galaxy of the Lost” (ft. Florence) – Lightspeed Champion
2. “No Surprise” (ft. Florence) – Lightspeed Champion
3. “Mr. Fisk” (ft. Florence) – Lightspeed Champion

British audiences have had plenty of chances to catch Lightspeed throughout the UK over the last 18 months, but US audiences will have to wait to 2008 to see Hynes live. That is, unless you live in our fair city of New York, where Dev will be making his American live debut at Soundfix (N 11th and Bedford in Williamsburg) this Halloween Wednesday. It’s his only US show of the year, so definitely make it out if you can – I can assure you it’ll be worth your time. Check out the flyer for more info here.

Finally, while I won’t be offering the MP3 for download (though the song is quite good), definitely make sure to check out/download this high-ass resolution copy of the “Galaxy of the Lost” video. It’s totally fucked up (think Little Shop of Horrors gone plush), but it’s kind of awesome too. As it’s a large file and those download issues still aren’t totally resolved, I’m hosting it on Megaupload for y’all to download and enjoy over and over again. Check it:

Video: “Galaxy of the Lost”
Artist: Lightspeed Champion
Director: Ferry Gouw
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [AVI • 67 MB] [follow link]

In other news, I saw Anton Corbijn’s Control (that Ian Curtis biopic) over the weekend and it was totally amazing. Go see it, assuming it’s out in your city. I know its run in NYC (at the Film Forum on W Houston between 6th and 7th) ends Thursday so you might have to act fast, but it’s worth it.
Oh and one final thing: M3 Volume 15 drops Halloween (hollerrr). See you then

That said, I’ve got all of his releases, have seen him live in London, am in love with his video for “Elephant Gun” (see below) and am really impressed by what the kid’s doing. I just don’t quite love him as much as everyone else seems to. Also, I’ve been called his doppleganger on countless occasions, but that’s neither here nor there. Regardless of my level of enthusiasm for Beirut, I’m psyched to be a part of this whole vLES thing even if I don’t totally know what to make of it yet. It could be something that’s fun for a few weeks or it could become a whole new phenomenon of its own. Or it could totally suck, but the literature on Vice’s site promises “it’s going to be so totally the opposite of boring you don’t even know”. I got high as balls last night and tooled around the vLES site for a little bit, but that’s pretty much the extent of my vLES experience to this point. So what do you say we all drop by from 6-7 PM tomorrow night and try it out together? It’ll only be a little bit weird I promise.

Not interested? Fuck off. Interested? AWESOME – follow THIS LINK to sign up. The whole thing is still in beta testing, so you can only sign up by following that specific link, which you will be able to then use for the next week and decide whether or not you’re into it for when the official full-fledged launch hits at some point in the near-ish future. And no, I’m not getting paid to promote this, I just think it might actually become something worth giving a fuck about at some point and want to see what it’s all about.

So yeah: THURSDAY NIGHT. 6-7 PM EST. REGISTER HERE. Please come. Thanks.

In specifically Beirut-related news, I may only really love a handful of tracks by him, but I totally worship at the altar of his video for “Elephant Gun”. Directed by Partizan newcomer Alma Har’el, there’s not much more to say about it other than that it’s fucking amazing. Possibly the best video of 2007, featuring the best choreography this side of Lil’ Mama and breathtaking cinematography and set design to rival even the silver screen’s finest cinematic accomplishments of the year, “Elephant Gun” proves Har’el to be a very special directing talent who’s certainly someone to keep an eye on. While I prefer the “Elephant Gun” video to her other Beirut clip for “Postcards From Italy”, both are most excellent and warrant a special spot in your heart and your hard drive. Enjoy them both in mad pretty high resolution below.

Video: “Elephant Gun”
Artist: Beirut
Director: Alma Har’el
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime • 51 MB]

Video: “Postcards From Italy”
Artist: Beirut
Director: Alma Har’el
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime • 92 MB]

In other news, LCD Soundsystem fucking KILLED IT at Randall’s Island on Saturday. I hope you were there.

Also, I’ve decided to do my best not to freak out about In Rainbows, considering every other blog ever is already doing a pretty good job of that for me. Instead, I’m currently focusing my energy on flipping my shit about how totally bad ass the first available track from Daft Punk’s Alive live album sounds. “Too Long”/”Steam Machine” was made available for streaming on the duo’s MySpace today, and fuck if it doesn’t sound absolutely glorious all professionally mixed and shit. This is a record I am very excited for.