Good Weather For Airstrikes

All of the cool kids might have been at LCD Soundsystem last night, but Bloc Party was incredible (as usual) at the United Palace’s first-ever rock show. Full review coming, but right now I get to deal with the fact that my account at Dreamhost has been - drumroll please - permanently disabled. Awesome! Whatever does that mean, you ask? Oh, just that none of the mp3 or image files on the site will work. So yeah, I won’t be able to get cracking on this until Monday at the earliest, so it will be a few days without any new updates or working downloads around these parts. Fuck.

That said, here’s a bit of a treat, graciously hosted by the folks at the VW Greenroom. Bloc Party have previously released two excellent acoustic recordings of “Plans” and “Storm and Stress” as B-sides to the Pioneers CD-Single, but now we’ve got a grip of new acoustic tracks courtesy of Volkswagen, FNX Radio and the Pheonix. Recorded live at the Greenroom last week, check out the mp3’s below for interesting new takes on “I Still Remember”, “Sunday” and first-album classic “This Modern Love”.

MP3s:
“I Still Remember” (Acoustic) - Bloc Party
“This Modern Love” (Acoustic) - Bloc Party
“Sunday” (Acoustic) - Bloc Party

And so begins three incredible nights of music. This bomb-ass shit tonight. Bloc Party tomorrow night. MSTRKRFT on Saturday. Fuck yes. But let’s take one thing at a time - who’s ready for a 1000% life-changing experience tonight? I know I am. Yes, I’ll be at Hiro’s Ballroom when the superstars of the Ed Banger collective descend upon Gotham tonight and if it’s even half as good as the last time I saw Justice it’ll be an event to remember for a longgg time. Plus, the Presets are opening, which is at least fifteen different kinds of awesome considering “Are You The One?” was one of the illest jams of ‘05.

MP3: “Are You The One?” - The Presets ((highly recommended))

Anyway, I’m fully planning on pummeling my sobriety into obscurity tonight in a big way, so in the event that my memory doesn’t serve me all that well tomorrow I thought it would be a good time to feature a guest review of the Ed Banger showcase last month in Belgium, even though we don’t really do the whole guest review thing, well, ever. But I mean, dude, got to experience Ed Banger rocking an abandoned train station to its knees in Belgium, and an incredible experience like that deserves to be documented somewhere. Plus, Kyle’s proven to be a benevolent force for GWFAS, bringing to my attention all kinds of hotness that’s eventually made it’s way onto the site in one form or another, including his very own edit of Busy P’s “Rainbow Man”, which you’ll find below. So, without further adieu, the floor is yours Mr. Christmon. Delight us.

Loyal Airstrikes readers are surely already familiar with Ed Banger Records. For me, it all began last summer when Derek dropped “Never Be Alone” and “Waters of Nazareth” on GWFAS and they proceeded to burn my old 3G iPod into the afterlife. Prior to that, however, I couldn’t claim to be much of an electro fan, although I was one of the lucky many to go apeshit at Daft Punk’s Coachella resurrection. The music of Ed Banger falls into the proverbial “acquired taste” genre, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude its deliberately epic nature (see: the Justice crucifix). A style that Pitchfork’s Tim Finney describes as “enamoured with mid-range blare” is certainly not for the weak of heart and it comes across as cacophonous at first listen. Yet behind the chaos are some truly adept artists poised to give mp3-era music a facelift, or, rather, a botched facelift, considering the sound of many of the label’s finest artists is rooted in what one could describe as mechanical malfunction.

Ed Banger music is kind of like a drug. As Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly put it: “you’re either on it, or you haven’t tried it yet.” Me? I’m addicted like a Hollywood socialite. So I headed up to Brussels a few weeks back and made my way through all the Tintin frescoed buildings to find Recyclart, host to Ed Banger Night Round 2. How was the venue? Let’s just say it was an abandoned train station (read: awesome) and leave it at that.

Truth be told, an array of adult beverages and smuggled Dutch souvenirs made the whole affair somewhat of an amalgamation of incredible moments, but I’ll do my best to distinguish them for you here. I can’t emphasize enough that the shindigs these guys put on are by no means your typical concert and definitely warrant the “party” label – the bar was packed by 21:00 (9 PM for you Americans) and Justice wasn’t wrapping things up until 5:00 in the AM! Suffice it to say, there was plenty of time to kill those brain/ear cells.

Okay, I know it’s odd I’m mentioning the merchandise but I simply must. So-Me and The ERS got all prom-committee on the venue and essentially put up neat shit everywhere. Limited edition t-shirts, sweaters, and tote bags upped the indie cred to an 11. I didn’t want to be one of those guys and buy my shirt before the show and drape it over my shoulder, or even worse, wear it, but fuck, I should have. The whole merch stand thing turned into a bit of a fiasco as they stopped selling before the show and sadly went AWOL later on. Thus, if you want one of these slick pieces of French bling then take my advice and get it when you see it, or, do as I did and be happy you were able to jack a couple posters on your way out.

Needless to say, the place was a full house – even Bob Saget would have had trouble getting in. Following the cattle drive to get inside, I snagged a drink and got prime position for what was to come. Yes, I’m one of those tall douches who stands up front. However, the half dozen Belgian behemoths up there as well absolved me of some of my guilt; not to mention they easily had 60 pounds and several E’s on me.

The “calm” before the storm came in the form of So-Me. I was previously under the impression So-Me was the resident film director/editor but apparently he’s aspiring to be more than that. A DJ/VJ/Artiste extraordinaire? All I know is Kanye isn’t the biggest fan of his work. Either way, the first undercard of So-Me vs. Mon Colonel did their job and got the ball rolling. All the acts throughout the night gave proper love to the notable absent members of Ed Recs (SebastiAn, DJ Mehdi, Uffie) while dishing out equal hotness from other contemporaries (Switch, Braxe & Falke, et al.).

MP3: “Golden Skans To Interzone” (So-Me Remix) – Klaxons

The party was officially underway once Kavinsky took the spotlight. Flossin’ the Risky Business Cruise shades, he showed he’s perhaps the best up-and-coming electronic artist in France not signed to the Ed Banger label (he’s inked to Air’s Record Makers label along with one Mr. Sebastien Tellier). Kavinsky’s set was tight, and though it wasn’t as flawless aesthetically as Justice’s - slight mess ups were indicated by the winces on his face at times throughout the set - he definitely got the crowd going. Two words: Testarossa Autodrive.

MP3s:
“Testarossa Autodrive” - Kavinsky ((highly recommended))
“Testarossa Autodrive” (SebastiAn Remix) - Kavinsky

Kavinsky soon made way for Busy P, who had already made clear his intention to do things Deutsche with his incessant waving of a German flag (which would later wind up in the audience). The brains of the whole Ed Banger operation, Busy P, a.k.a. Pedro Winter, showed the same prowess spinning front-and-center that he has in managing Daft Punk and his present label-mates from behind the scenes. His style isn’t as fluent as Kavinsky or Justice, but he managed to spin hot-fire nonetheless. In this regard, Busy P is the most accessible of the bunch - more of a crowd pleaser - especially considering it’s his product he’s trying to sell. The parties, like the music, are chaotic, as much in the hands of the audience as the performers. They show a fledgling record company attempting to push a new brand of music on an otherwise force-fed generation. This means for Ed Banger what it does for any other indie label: they are artistically liberated but commercially burdened.

This surfaced during the show. I can’t help but say there was an irritating element of shameless self-promotion to the whole ordeal. I’m in no way disappointed - they gave away a ton of free shit - but this undoubtedly detracted from the atmosphere they did such a great job of creating. It’s as if Busy P was negotiating that ground between independent music and the mass-appeal nature of the electronic/club genre wherein one-hit wonders are forgotten in a week. This held true for the Brussels audience as well, for a good amount of those in attendance it wasn’t as much about the music as it was getting pissed and thrashing… in hindsight, Winter may have something here. It will be intriguing to see how this music is received over the next year, particularly in America.

MP3s:
“Rainbow Man” - Busy P
“Rainbow Man” (K. Christmon’s Slight Tamper) - Busy P

Back to business though - at this point the whole affair was nothing short of a formal rave. The stage was littered with Uffie facsimiles. There were cameras pointed every which way documenting it all, lending to the whole self-reflexive vibe of the night. Ultimately, we all knew we were there to witness the cinematic grandiosity that is Justice and, in doing so, we became part of it.

Then… JUSTICE. What more can I say. They are truly the diamond in the rough for the foreseeable future of electronic music; just wait until “D.A.N.C.E.” drops if you’re not yet a believer. The “frontman” of Justice, Xavier de Rosnay, patiently waited on stage most the night, occasionally tweaking the turntables of his comrades, getting in the zone. Then he just sort of wiggled in and took over. Honestly, he reminded me of Bruce Lee. You know, that part in every movie after he’s arrived to help out at his uncle’s restaurant, the neighborhood cronies are lurking, yet Bruce is as cool as ever, and slowly, in that one scene, as they confront him, everyone realizes that when he decides to bust out there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. This is the defining attribute of de Rosnay, a nonchalance that almost hides the insane audio technician beneath.

MP3s:
“Waters of Nazareth” - Justice ((highly recommended))
“We Are Your Friends” - Justice vs Simian ((highly recommended))

The whole crucifix/Nazareth/biblical thing is such a fitting theme; then again, maybe it’s all just a facade for the masses - dressing on the cake. Still, it’s a trendy but fitting metaphor for not only the label, but the artists and their music. Excuse the extensive filmic analogies but that’s really what Ed Banger Records is: a cult classic. To some, the self-adorned glamour may seem contrived, but when all is said and done it’s a slew of enviable badasses giving us impatient masses what we want.

For those of you who haven’t had the privilege of attending one of these things, by all means try to. As with losing your virginity, it’s a bit messy and confusing at first but ever so marvelous. Ed Banger Records, in their various performing configurations, just launched a US tour in Miami last month, so get to your nearest metropolis and join the club. Below you’ll find mp3s of artists who weren’t actually present at the show, but whose tracks made their way into the various DJ sets of the evening all the same, along with a few other Ed Banger related treats. Enjoy./

MP3s:
“Bossy” (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix) - Kelis
“Pop The Glock” - Uffie
“Where’s Your Head At” - Basement Jaxx
“Ross Ross Ross” - SebastiAn
“Bump (Switch Remix)” - Spank Rock
“Signatune” (Thomas Bangalter’s More Kick Edit) - DJ Mehdi
“We Are Your Friends” (Radioslave & Spencer Park Re-Edit) - Justice
“Phantom” (CA$HMERE Mix) - Justice

Don’t you wish all of our live reviews were this good? Well done, Mr. Christmon, well done. Who’s going tonight? Keep an eye out for me - I’ll be the lanky motherfucker in the blue shirt and brown pants, accompanied by two extremely attractive ladyfriends and possibly a scruffy red-headed fellow as well. See you there.

Meet the best unsigned band in New York City. Vampire Weekend are four kids from Columbia University who write fun, shouty, skinny-tie indie rock songs about summertime, Cape Cod, reggaeton and Lil’ Jon. They’ve got this great, distinctly American sound infused with elements of afrobeat (seriously) and all dressed up in whimsical keys, effervescent pop sounds and sing-a-long melodies. Or, as their MySpace puts it, “[they] are specialists in the following styles: ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’, ‘Upper West Side Soweto’, ‘Campus’, and ‘Oxford Comma Riddim’.” I caught them live last month at a party at Columbia where they put on a great show despite a less-than-awesome sound setup (frat houses aren’t really famed for their acoustics) and an audience made up of kids who likely wouldn’t know good music if it beat them up and took their lunch money. But what’s most impressive about this band is the incredibly tight production of their demos, considering their unsigned status. Every song I’ve heard so far is great, with “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, “A-Punk” and, my favorite of the bunch, “Oxford Comma” standing out as their best tracks and showing off a remarkably polished sound for such a young, presumably inexperienced band.

The sound in question is not terribly groundbreaking per se, but at the same time it’s got an extremely unique style about it and is a wonderfully refreshing change of pace in the often uninspired and stale NYC indie-rock scene. One could probably draw comparisons in the vocal stylings of the band to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah if they really wanted to, but I mean, did you read the part where I mentioned the elements of afrobeat? Who the fuck rocks afrobeat in this scene? Seriously, check this out now.

Below you’ll find two of my favorite tracks by the band, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and “Oxford Comma”, as well as a surprisingly excellent electro-pop remix of another one of their tracks, “Walcott”. These kids play a ton of shows in the NYC area (I’ll be catching them at Merc a week from Thursday), so hit up their MySpace where you’ll find their complete list of tour dates as well as two more songs for streaming, potential singles “Mansard Roof” and “A-Punk”. It’s time to get very very excited about Vampire Weekend for 2007.

MP3s:
“Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” - Vampire Weekend ((highly recommended))
“Oxford Comma” - Vampire Weekend ((highly recommended))
“Walcott” (Insane Mix #2) - Vampire Weekend

“Trains To Brazil”, anyone? No seriously, Ghosts take the template established by those lovable Guillemots on the best song of last year - bouncy melody, soaring vocals, roaring brass sections… shit, it even begins with a nearly identical opening lyric - and feeds it through the mainstream pop machine. The result is “Stay The Night”, the first single from London pop quartet Ghosts, and well, it’s nothing all that original and there’s not even the slightest modicum of academic merit here. That said, you really deserve a medal if you can keep your toes from tapping during this track, and - just like “Trains” before it - it’s just the thing to usher in the carefree whimsy of spring with.

MP3: “Stay The Night” - Ghosts

…And speaking of mainstream-as-shit Britpop acts, here’s the new single from Air Traffic, whom Ghosts are supporting at present on their current UK tour. “Charlotte” has actually already seen release as the B-side to the band’s initial “Just Abuse Me” 7″, but now it’s ready to step into the spotlight in all its A-side glory, with a shiny new production job and some brand new clothes to help it get the job done.

MP3: “Charlotte” - Air Traffic

I know I said we’d be back up and running on Monday and everything, but the last three days have seen me juggling class, work and about 100 different great post-SXSW shows every night, so I’ve been a bit too busy to really get much internet time. I’ve pretty much run out of money though now, so I’m staying in tonight until 11 when Cut Off Your Hands go on at Piano’s, at which point I should have roughly enough money to buy half a beer (thank god for guest lists).

But yeah, I’m back. It’s good to be home, sans the whole having to do work again after a week of drinking my bodyweight in rum and cokes and smoking Cubans like it ain’t no thing. I’d originally planned to do a recap of the absolutely incredible experience, but considering I wrote two pages on my layover at the Cancun airport alone, I figured it’d just end up being a lengthy-ass waste of everyone’s time. So the following is just a brief overview of the highlights:

• I ate a quesadilla in Mexico, made by actual Mexicans. In Mexico. Probably the best thing I have ever eaten in my entire life ever.
• The last two times I went to Cuba I stuck to the more tourist-oriented stuff, but having covered all of that in my previous trips I struck out on my own a lot this time, allowing me to rock some choice tunes (see below) while getting lost in the incredibly cinematic grandeur of Old Havana.
• I went to a Cuban night club, Casa De La Musica, and got rejected (for wearing shorts), thus bringing the number of times I’ve been rejected from clubs in third world countries equal to the number of times I’ve been rejected in NYC. However, after going home and changing into more respectable attire (read: pants), we gained entry and just happened to be there on the one night that Latin America’s best pop salsa band, Paulito F6, were slated to rock the house with their winning brand of ample ass-shakery, slammin’ brass sections and pop-infused latin rhythms. Suffice it to say, it was awesome. Watching the Cuban girls shake what their mothers so gratefully imparted unto them wasn’t all that bad either.
• Warm weather.
• The incredible, incredible art. Seriously, I’ve never been so consistently floored by more amazing artwork in one place than I was in Cuba. Whether it was the Museum of Fine Arts or just the flea market, the Cuban culture is just bursting at the seams with incredibly talented young artists. Next March will be the Bienal, a month-long art festival in Cuba, and I’m already psyched for it to be one of the most incredible experiences of my life.
• Everything else. Seriously, there wasn’t a single moment on this trip when I felt as if I wasn’t having a truly amazing experience, and Havana is truly the most magical place in the world, without even the slightest doubt.

One thing though, it’s hard to find music that feels terribly appropriate for the atmosphere of Cuba, so the trip found me revisiting a small batch of songs over and over again, as they were the only tracks that seemed to work in harmony with my surroundings. Some of these made it on the mix because I was just terribly fond of them at the time, while others were much more fitting for the tropical, cinematic nostalgia of Havana. Then there’s “Sao Paolo”, the only song that truly fits Havana like a glove. From the cinematic grandeur of the dramatic, swirling strings to the overwhelming emotion of the chorus and its epic runtime, “Sao Paolo” is exactly what walking through Parque Central and down past the Capitolio at midnight sounds like, and doing so with the song scoring my ever step was truly an unforgettable experience. For all intents and purposes, the following tracks are the only songs I listened to on the trip, and they’ll forever be remembered as the perfect score for my life-affirming adventure to Cuba in the spring of 2007.

MP3s:
1. “There Goes The Fear” - Doves
2. “Man Overboard” - Polytechnic
3. “Diamonds In The Dark” (Kid Harpoon Version) - Mystery Jets
4. “Heart’s A Mess” - Gotye
5. “Setting Sun” - Howling Bells
6. “Run Run Run” - Phoenix
7. “You Got Me All Wrong” - Dios Malos
8. “Everything Is Alright” - Four Tet
9. “Coney Island” - Death Cab For Cutie
10. “Sao Paolo” - Guillemots

Back to usual tomorrow.

So yeah, while all the cool kids are down in Austin at SXSW I’ll be keepin’ it real in Cuba for the rest of the week, so expect posts to resume when I get back on Monday.

For now though, here’s the jam of the day, courtesy of Arizona’s finest, Dear and the Headlights. And yes, that’s right, I actually just posted a track from an American band, so you know it must be really good (it is).

MP3: “It’s Gettin’ Easy” - Dear and the Headlights ((highly recommended))

And fuck it, I don’t want to leave you hanging; here are a few other tracks that have been getting heavy rotation on the pod all week.

MP3s:
“Birds” - Kate Nash ((highly recommended))
“Man Overboard” - Polytechnic ((highly recommended))
“Riverside” - Kid Harpoon
“Just Like Heaven” - David E. Sugar

Enjoy, hopefully these significantly hot jams will tide you over until Monday. “Birds” and “Man Overboard” are PHENOMENAL. Just saying.

One of the better Monday nights in recent history, right up there with this. Check it.

PLAN B @ JOE’S PUB

While I didn’t have much in the way of high expectations, this was a phenomenal show. You see, I wrongly passed off Plan B as a mediocre combination of Eminem and the Streets when I first heard of him last year, and even when he opened my eyes with his starring role in Epic Man’s “More Is Enough”, I still wasn’t quite motivated enough to check out his solo material. I was wrong.

Born Ben Drew in Forest Gate, London, Plan B makes “films for the blind”, as he put it last night. That is - he writes songs so tightly woven with detail and description that one can just close their eyes and watch the story unfold before them. And yeah, while his controversial-as-shit lyrics have brought him under fire from the British media on more than one occasion, he’s really just telling a story of things that are really happening that, uncomfortable and depressing as they may be, need to be discussed. Furthermore, he separates himself from the rest of the pack in the British rap scene by setting his songs to predominately acoustic beats and possessing a voice capable of producing vocals that would make even the most trained singer-songwriters jealous. One second he’s spitting caustic rapidfire verses on a track and the next he’s launching into a soulful, passionate chorus, all the while strumming an acoustic guitar like it ain’t no thing.

Joe’s Pub proved to be an interesting venue for the event, as the crowd seemed to be split evenly between people there for Plan B and older couples there for dinner and some post-meal entertainment, but despite lyrics discussing “anal passageways”, “genital warts”, graphic accounts of murder and other fun stuff, they seemed to love it more than anyone else, and his performance likely became the unexpected highlight of their night. Highlights were set opener “Mama”, “Charmaine” and closer “Who Needs Actions, When You Got Words”, the title track from his debut LP. Definitely grab the tracks below and go here and here to see videos of Plan B’s acoustic live performance, and don’t forget to check out Everett’s post on B’s brilliant Paint It Blacker bootleg as well.

MP3s:
“Charmaine“ - Plan B
“Mama” - Plan B

Previously:
“Paint It Blacker” - Plan B
“Wild Horses” - Plan B
“Missing Links” - Plan B

METRONOMY W/ HOT CLUB DE PARIS @ MIDWAY

Plan B wrapped up around 8:30, so then we rolled over to Midway to catch Hot Club De Paris and Metronomy put on another unexpectedly fantastic show. Hot Club De Paris opened with a short a capella number before launching into the brilliantly-titled “Sometimesitsbetternottostickbitsofeachotherineachotherforeachother”. The band struck up a great rapport with the audience through inter-song zingers and humorous anecdotes, but they also seemed to know the majority of the people in attendance, to the point that I began to feel like I was actually the only non-Brit in attendance. That didn’t detract from my experience any though, and the rest of Hot Club De Paris’ set was great as well - especially single “Everyeveryeverything”, a self-described “song about everything” - though the highlight might have been when I glanced to my left and realized I was standing directly next to Mssrs. Ford and Shaw of Simian Mobile Disco. I chatted with them (read: lavished them with praise) for a bit and gave my compliments to Ford on his excellent production work on the new Arctic Monkeys single (see below), before moving on and getting ready for Metronomy’s set.

MP3s:
“Sometimesitsbetter…” - Hot Club De Paris
“Everyeveryeverything” - Hot Club De Paris

Now it’s well-documented that Metronomy’s remixes have vastly out shined his own productions to this point, but if his set last night was any indication, that should hopefully change in the near future. I was blown away by what proved to be an incredibly fun set, complete with endearing choreography and blinking lights affixed to all three of the band members chests. The set seemed to be comprised mostly of new material I’d not yet heard, but closer and single “You Could Easily Have Me” was a definite highlight, along with a new song that featured a chorus made by what sounded like an electronic reworking of that brilliant guitar solo from “Reptilia”. “Trick or Treatz” also got the crowd moving, but outside of that the rest of the highlights were mostly new tracks that managed to handily trump most of the songs found on the band’s debut LP, Pip Paine (Pay Back The £5000 You Owe). All in all, it was a surprisingly great set and got me very excited to hear the band’s new material, which will hopefully surface sooner rather than later if there’s any justice in this world. For now though, we’ll have to settle for Metronomy’s consistently-flawless remix output and the highlights off Pip Paine, like the tracks available below.

MP3s:
“You Could Easily Have Me” - Metronomy
“This Could Be Beautiful (It Is)” - Metronomy
“Atlantis To Interzone” (Metronomy Remix) - Klaxons ((highly recommended))
“The Treatment” (Metronomy Remix) - Dead Disco ((highly recommended))

ARCTIC MONKEYS ARE RELEVANT AGAIN!
It had been over a year since I listened to anything by the Arctic Monkeys, after the initial glory of “From The Ritz To The Rubble” finally wore off and Whatever People Say I Am failed to live up to my expectations. But hot damn, that’s all changed now, with the unveiling of their much-awaited new single, the James Ford-produced “Brainstorm”. I generally get excited by anything James Ford’s involved in (see: Simian, SMD, Dead Disco’s “Automatic”, the whole damn Klaxons record, et. al), but he just does a truly phenomenal job here. Fast and furious, the track is a bit darker than the band’s usual fare, but serves as a resounding reminder of just how talented a lyricist Alex Turner is. Dude just has a ridiculous way with words, to the point that you don’t really care if they mean anything at all (see: “See you later, elevator!”) just so long as you can revel in the brilliance of his rhyming schemes for just a little bit longer. Furthermore, Ford gives the track the production it deserves, giving it that dark, future-rock feel that SMD rock so well and even throwing in the backing vocal effects he first showed off in the SMD’s bangin’ edit of the Klaxons’ “Magick”. Color me very excited to see if the rest of Favourite Worst Nightmare lives up to the initial brilliance of the single.

MP3s:
“Brianstorm” - Arctic Monkeys ((highly recommended))
“Magick” (Simian Mobile Disco Mix) - Klaxons

Considering the fact that I get at least three emails a week (without fail) requesting that I repost this live set, taken from the Postal Service’s performance at Morning Becomes Eclectic in 2004, it’s probably pretty rude of me to have waited so long to re-up it. Sorry, sometimes it takes me a long-ass time to get around to doing the simplest things; it happens. Anyway, here it is - the emails can stop now. The whole thing’s pretty great and worth downloading if only for the incredible new version of “Brand New Colony” and Jenny Lewis’ sterling performance on “Nothing Better”*, not to mention the beautiful update to “District Sleeps Alone Tonight”.

Download: The Postal Service: Live On Morning Becomes Eclectic [follow link]

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. “District Sleeps Alone Tonight”
3. “We Will Become Silhouettes”
4. “Nothing Better” (ft. Jenny Lewis)
5. Interview
6. “Clark Gable”
7. “This Place Is A Prison”
8. “Such Great Heights”
9. “Brand New Colony” (Radio Mess Up)
10. “Brand New Colony” ((highly recommended))

*contrary to popular belief it was actually Jen Wood, not Jenny Lewis, who sang on the majority of Give Up so yeah, enjoy this new and improved version featuring J-Lew in all her glory.

Gotye (apparently pronounced “gore-ti-yeah”?…) is Wally De Backer, a.k.a. one talented motherfucker. Seriously, dude’s stylistic versatility is off the charts, and for proof one needs to look no further than his debut album, Like Drawing Blood. No two songs on the album sound the same, and while I could go into all of the stylistic deviations found on the record, an examination of the vast differences across the LP’s three premier tracks does more than enough to sonically elucidate this point.

“Learnalilgivinanlovin” is the closest thing to a single here, garnering extensive praise and radio play from Australia’s leading alternative station, Triple J (who would later name “Heart’s A Mess” the 8th best track of ‘06), and drawing the LP enough attention to wrangle it a spot on the shortlist for the 2006 Australian Music Prize, the down under equivalent of the Britain’s vaunted Mercury Music Prize. The track opens with some signature Phil Spector drums before roaring to life in a burst of brass and technicolor, and De Backer’s soulful, falsetto’d vocals and motivational lyrics give the whole thing a super retro feel that’s bound to get your feet tapping. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, “Heart’s A Mess” is the Like Drawing Blood’s best track, thanks to a brilliant chorus that stands out as the album’s finest moment. Stylistically, it couldn’t be more different from “Learn…”, forgoing the hooky bombast of the single for stirring nigh-balladry, all swirling string arrangements and sparse percussion sections. It’s not the single, but when De Backer was given a decent budget for an animated music video, he and animator Brendan Cook agreed that “Heart’s A Mess” was the track most worthy of the cinematic treatment. It appears as if they made the right choice too, as the final product is one of the most breathtaking and beautifully animated videos I’ve ever seen - don’t make the mistake of overlooking it below.

Video: “Heart’s A Mess” - Gotye
Director: Brendan Cook (interview with SRO regarding the video here)
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime]

Finally, bringing the focus back to the music, “A Distinctive Sound” stands out as the greatest stylistic departure on the album. Truly a distinctive sound among the more pop-minded tracks that surround it, “Sound” is an experimental samplefest that wouldn’t be out of place in the oeuvre of Gotye’s fellow countrymen the Avalanches, recalling and - dare I say - outshining their genre-defying hit, “Frontier Psychiatrist”. Sure, it’s a bit confusing in the company of the more conventional tracks that accompany it on the album, but come on - if there’s one thing Like Drawing Blood will teach you, it’s that expectations and preconceived notions have no place in the world of Gotye.

MP3s:
“Heart’s A Mess” - Gotye ((highly recommended))
“A Distinctive Sound” - Gotye ((highly recommended))
“Learnalilgivinanlovin” - Gotye

Shots Ring Out is generally all over the big new video releases (and “Dashboard” is about as big as it gets), and yeah, they’ve covered it over there, but no download link? That’s just not nice, come on now boys. Thus, I’m taking it upon myself to step up and appease the masses.

Enough about that though, onto the video. The track doesn’t exactly scream “otherworldly nautical adventure”, but apparently Isaac Brock himself specifically requested the aquatic theme and directing team Motion Theory have done an excellent job realizing his vision, even if it is a bit visually overwhelming at times. A clever take on the “big fish” genre of tall tales, the clip features beautifully rendered computer-animated environments and brilliant special effects wizardry, all the while capitalizing on the epic-pioneering-adventure vibe of the song. “Dashboard” just might be my favorite song of the year so far (it’s neck and neck with “Our Velocity” and like, every single song on A Weekend In The City), and the video is one of the year’s best to date as well. Love it.

Video: “Dashboard” - Modest Mouse
Director: Motion Theory
Watch: [YouTube]
Download: [Quicktime]

PHONES? P. DIDDY? OH MY.
Didn’t see this one coming. At all. Not even a little bit. But hey, I’m not complaining, this shit is off the hinges. I mean, Phones completely re-works the track and drops an absolutely MASSIVE beat here that pound, pound, pounds its way into your brain until the original’s but a distant memory. Props.

MP3: “Tell Me” (Phones Remix) - P. Diddy ((highly recommended))

MAXIMO LEAKS, IS GOOD
After A Weekend In The City, Maximo Park’s upcoming second album, Our Earthly Pleasures, was easily my most anticipated release of 2007, especially after “Our Velocity” surfaced and became my favorite song, like, ever. Fortunately for me and countless others waiting with baited breath, the album leaked today and I’ve been spinning it all day ever since. Definitely too soon to form an opinion on the album, let alone choose a track to post, but outside of “Velocity”, it’s “Your Urge” and surefire second single “The Unshockable” that are presenting themselves as the hottest tracks at this point. Can’t really help you with “The Unshockable”, but Spin’s got the hook up for “Your Urge”; get on it below.

MP3s:
“Our Velocity” - Maximo Park ((highly recommended))
“Your Urge” - Maximo Park [via Spin]

Thanks to Ben and Samir for the heads up on Phones and Maximo, respectively. My this was a productive day.