Good Weather For Airstrikes

2006 was a huge year for the French, with talented electro-house acts breaking out all over the place, but things have quieted down a bit in 2007. Sure, all the usual suspects (Justice, SebastiAn, Kavinsky, et. al) are still dropping fire on the regular, but we haven’t had a new French act to lose our shit for since Kavinsky burst onto the scene with “Testarossa Autodrive” late last year. That’s all about to change though, with two new talents on the verge of breaking into the public consciousness, both with their own unique take on the French electro sound that’s become so huge over the last 18 months.

While Pedro Winter and the Ed Banger collective have more or less dominated the French scene for the last two years, 2007 sees a new generation of artists and labels making a name for themselves outside of the Justice/SebastiAn/Uffie crowd. Kavinsky led the way with his signing to Air’s Record Makers label last year, and now labels like Disque Primeur and Elekroshock are beginning to make some serious noise as well. It’s Elekroshock who have the honor of putting out newcomer Danger’s tracks, and what an honor it is. Borrowing elements from everything that’s hot in electronic music now, Danger’s 9/14 2007 EP is an incredibly promising debut and suggests that Danger just might be the closest thing the French have to an heir to the Justice thrown of hype. Danger represents himself as an animated action hero, names all his songs after times and dates and his single, “11h30″, just might be the best electro-house track of the year not involving a children’s choir and disco strings. Remember how you felt when you first heard “Waters of Nazareth”? Yeah, it’s kind of like that.

Incorporating a pastiche of influences from across the European electro scene, Danger brings together glitchy pop sounds, electronic power chords, Klaxon-esque backing vocals and an incomprehensible chorus to create an absolute banger in “11h30″ and it totally slays. Working with the same dark edge that runs throughout the French-house scene these days, you can draw a lot of parallels between Danger’s sound and that of SebastiAn, Kavinsky and Justice, but as the literature accompanying the EP correctly asserts, he’s not just another nu-disco act jumping on the electro bandwagon. “This is about emotions. His music has meaning, it’s both personal and universal; he is a true composer working in his own universe,” the press release goes on, and I have to say I agree. “11h30″ is truly immense, a visceral listening experience on par with “Waters of Nazareth” and “Ross Ross Ross”, and the track joins said predecessors among the ranks of the best electronic singles in recent history. So listen people, Danger is definitely someone worth getting really excited about, and you best be ready for him to do some serious damage in the new year.

MP3: “11h30″ - Danger ((highly recommended))

Moving away from the purely electronic and into the realm of electro-rock is FORTUNE, who’s ready to takeover the France with a new sound of his own. While still embracing the heavy electronic influence of his contemporaries, he brings live drums and (*gasp*) guitars into the mix for a refreshing new take on that so hot right now French sound. “Bully” is the first and only track he’s currently got available, but it’s a total banger and a freshly-inked deal with Disque Primeur will supposedly yield a debut EP from FORTUNE before the year is out. Sounding like Phoenix if they took a more bangin’ direction or the Ed Banger dudes if they left their distortion knobs alone for a minute and picked up guitars instead, “Bully” is an amazing first track and has me desperate to hear more. I hope you feel the same.

MP3: “Bully” - FORTUNE ((highly recommend))

Elsewhere, the latest issue of the NME brought with it quite the bonus package on Wednesday, in the form of a free CD of “Flux” remixes. While opinions (including mine) are still extremely mixed on Bloc Party’s latest single, they rarely let us down in the remix department and this time out it’s no different. With MSTRKRFT’s JFK (seriously, dudes must have some serious disdain for vowels) and GoodBooks both throwing down some interesting takes on the tracks, this is definitely a remix EP worth purchasing. Oh wait, it’s free. Fuck yeah.

MP3s:
“Flux” (JFK Remix) - Bloc Party
“Flux” (GoodBooks Magnetism Mix) - Bloc Party

ALTERNATE LINKS
• “11h30″ - Danger
• “Bully” - FORTUNE
• “Flux” (JFK Remix) - Bloc Party
• “Flux” (GoodBooks Magnetism Mix) - Bloc Party

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Artist Profile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.