Good Weather For Airstrikes

Globetrotting ain’t easy. My two-week bender across Europe has left me with a head cold of epic proportions and so now it’s a beautiful day in Barcelona and I’m stuck inside with this here blog shit. A blessing in disguise though I guess, as I’ve been trying to find time to devote some words to Danger’s unfuckwithable set at Berlin’s Club Maria last Friday night.

First things first: Fuck pretty much everything on Ed Banger, Danger IS the next great hope for French electronic music. I told you so way back when, but with only one (albeit phenomenal) EP under his belt it seemed a bit early to give the 23 year-old maestro such a lofty title. That said, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who saw dude obliterate Club Maria in Berlin last Friday who would disagree. I’ll say it: this was THE best DJ set I’ve ever seen, and this is coming from a kid who’s seen SMD, Justice, and Girl Talk in their various incarnations upwards of five times each. At such an early stage in a DJ’s touring career, it’s hard to know what to expect from an hour-long “live” set. SMD and Justice both underwhelmed significantly until they got some higher production values behind them (Simian with their over-the-top light show and Justice with their flashing cross and monolithic amp setup), but less than a year into his touring life cycle Danger seems to have it all figured out. Working with nothing more than a pocketful of absurdly hot jams, two laptops, a mixer, and an incredible visual backdrop documenting different animated moments in his mysterious genesis (something about a pyramid, a jungle, a bunch of flashing lights and a shadowy alien-looking creature), Danger keeps it simple while managing to put on one of the most brilliant audio-visual spectacles this side of Mssrs. Bangalter and de Homem-Christo, so much so that he can even be forgiven for perpetuating the DJs-wearing-masks pandemic.

Danger took the stage around 1 to a sparsely-populated dancefloor and immediately started dropping the heat, tearing through a set exclusively comprised of his own material, with what sounded like a few as-yet-unreleased remixes thrown in for good measure. The video accompaniment was amazing, but it was the tunes that really made the night, as the visuals unfortunately malfunctioned and dropped out about halfway through his set. It didn’t matter though - Danger didn’t miss a beat and just kept on doing his thing, playing the mixer like it was its own instrument and dancing every bit as hard as the crowd, a refreshing change for the cooler-than-thou DJ types that pervade throughout the French scene. The new material sounds amazing, but it was “11h30″ the headline track off his 9/14/2007 EP that provided the uncontested pinnacle of the night, with that incomprehensible chorus and omnipotent bass surges absolute destroying a dancefloor that had since filled to max capacity since the start of his set. Furthermore, “11h30″ was my absolute favorite electronic single of last year, coming out of nowhere to edge out “D.A.N.C.E.” and “Pogo” on my perpetually-unreleased year-end lists. If you somehow missed it the first time around, jump on the bandwagon and revel in what you’ve been missing out on.

MP3: “11h30″ - Danger

Danger’s also got a remix of Sebastien Tellier’s “Divine” coming down the pipeline for the upcoming single release of the track. I was of the mind that this would be his first official remix, but it looks like Mr. West and company are one step ahead of the pack as usual, as Danger’s remix of up-and-coming John Legend protege Estelle recently hit the blogs to much pomp and circumstance. Here it is in all its unreleased glory.

MP3: “American Boy” (Danger Remix) - Estelle ft. Kanye West

Those of you who want to get a taste of the Danger live experience should check the video linked below, as it’s got mostly high quality sound throughout and does a good job documenting the visual accompaniment as well. You can also hear an early edit of his “Divine” remix towards the end (around the 14-minute mark), so it’s definitely worth checking out here if you can’t wait a few weeks until the single release.

What else is good? Well I finally regained access to the internet yesterday, only to find that The Devil, You + Me, the LONG-awaited follow up to the Notwist’s Neon Golden, had hit the internet and that City Slang was giving away its lead-off track for free. You’ve not read much of the Notwist in these pages as they’ve been dormant for most of the decade, but Neon Golden is one of my favorite albums of all time and I couldn’t be more excited to delve into their latest offering. I mean, I was only 15 at the time of Neon Golden’s release and thus not exactly as on top of my music shit as I am today, but I can’t think of a better album released in 2002, so suffice it to say I’m pretty fucking pumped. Here’s The Devil, You + Me opener “Good Lies” and my favorite track off its predecessor, “Consequence”. Has there been a better track to get vulnerable to in history? Doubtful.

MP3: “Good Lies” - The Notwist
MP3: “Consequence” - The Notwist

Finally, there’s nothing better than walking around Barcelona with this on your ‘phones, which I still hold in the highest regard as one of the greatest songwriting accomplishments of the 21st century. Hyperbole much? Yeah, but I mean it really is that good.

MP3: “Sao Paolo” - Guillemots

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Live Review. 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.