mixtape maestro (2.0)

Newbie Louisville, Kentucky four-piece The Pass construct a fierce indie dance-rock boogie that’s sure to rank amongst favorites come year-end music list-making time with “Colors”, the title track to the their newly released introductory EP.

The track’s main riff, a punchy, cock-sure cyclone of ringing guitar funkiness, houses an instantaneous spark, the kind that haphazardly seeps into your brain in the A.M. and leaves you floating through air the rest of the day, the echoing of it’s contagious rhythm in your head all that’s needed to keep your personal mood on a life-loving, sunny tip.

Are their other elements to “Colors” were mentioning? Of course: it carries cool vocals and a solid hook that’s just begging to be sung along to while driving down the highway in the middle of the summer with your friends; for us, however, it’s all about that central strut of a groove.

Peep it (and fall in love) below.

DL: “Colors” (alt)

Uncategorized dance-rock, indie pop, indie rock, kentucky, the pass

On the opening verse of Music For Men peak moment “Love Long Distance”, a tense indie-disco foundation of four-on-the-floor stomp, one-finger house piano and a back-and-forth bassline tiptoe help visualize scenes of Beth Ditto nervously pacing to and fro across her living room floor, tapping her toes impatiently as she continually dials the number to an un-answering faraway lover. “I’ve had it with your antics/ Your childish games,” she resigns, the “I told you so” background murmuring of surrounding friends fueling her decision.

It’s a thrilling introduction to another one of the band’s crispily-produced club-aimed entries, and thankfully, the fun doesn’t end there.

As the song goes on, a ferocious bass chug helps thicken out the production mix to signify Ditto’s increasing sense of frustration and heartache as she continues to rip into her heartless partner, at one point cleverly adding a nice little twist to an old Motown line (“I heard it through the bass line/ Not much longer would you be my baby”).

Those who (somewhat understandably) balk at Gossip’s continuous detour away from their roughened blues-punk beginnings for a more polished dance edge will surely have more negative things to say about this track (and much of the new album’s) poppier aesthetic, but let them whine; Gossip have shown with “Heavy Cross” and now “Love Long Distance” that, as Randy Jackson would say, they are “in it to win it” in 2009, and, at least from this corner of the Web-iverse, it’s a move much appreciated.

Uncategorized dance-rock, disco, indie rock, punk, the gossip

It’s understandable why longtime Gossip fans might be a little concerned after hearing the now-Portland-based band’s new single, “Heavy Cross”: with it’s semi-polished dance-rock thrust and tinge of disco, it has very little in common with the shaggy blues-rock that defined their earlier output. But damn if it still isn’t an epic mind-blower that launches their new major label-backed, Rick Rubin-produced era on an exciting note.

It’s slow-build intro of tightly-wound guitar, starry-eyed keyboard notes and Beth Ditto’s wailing of “a cruel, cruel world” kicks things off thrillingly, but once it’s main groove enters the picture a minute of the way in, an explosion of twitchy riffage and Beth’s eruption-like testifying, “Cross” grabs firm hold over your entire body and refuses to let go, beating you over the heard with it’s Stevie Nicks-ish fireworks until you have no choice but to let loose and pull out your best strut-shimmy.

If nothing else, after months of having so many tiny-voiced, electro-pop pixie chicks make us shake what our mother’s gave us, it’s simply exhilarating to be blasted across the fact with the super-sized pipes of Ditto on a ferocious dance charmer like this.

Catch the “maybe-or-maybe-not” official video of “Cross”, followed by an offering of the spazzy, Black Lights-helmed remix, below.

“Heavy Cross”‘ parent album, Music For Men, arrives June 22nd.

DL: “Heavy Cross (Black Lights Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized dance-rock, female rock, portland, rick rubin, the gossip

On “Too Fake”, a indie-dance rock tune supplied by Portland, Oregon buzz band Hockey, it’s not entirely clear whether front-man Benjamin Grubin is either stricken with ADHD or peaks of drunken confusion as he stumbles his way through several doses of contradictory dialogue (“Everybody’s watching oh but nobody cares/ Oh wait…Nobody’s watching but everybody cares/…Oh whatever, talk to you later”).

What is firmly established, though, is that his sexy Mick Jagger-meets-Prince persona and “too cool for the room” ‘tude nicely flatters the track’s verse foundation of electro burbles and throbbing basslines; not to mention the way a certain Rod Stewart-rasp in his voice is exposed once “Fake”’s thrilling new wave-built rush of a chorus arrives.

Grubin may not be able to figure out whether he’s “just too fake for this world” or just “got too much soul for this world” (or, somewhat confusingly, both), but with tracks like “Too Fake” and other MySpace-featured delights like “Song Away” and the slinky, disco-flirting romp “Work”, we get the sense that “this world” will definitely be better off as more and more people get in tune with what Hockey is cooking.

Look for their Mad Chaos LP to drop around May/ June.

Too Fake Music Video

DL: “Too Fake” (alt)

Uncategorized dance-rock, hockey, indie rock, new wave, oregon, portland

Judging by the handful of neon-toned tracks they tease on their MySpace, Liverpool fivesome Soft Toy Emergency must love them some sugar. Every single one of their posted tunes produce a kind of hyperactive high that could only be achieved after scarfing down gobs of candy (with little worry towards the stomachache after-effects).

On current single “I Kno U Want It”, fizzy riffs, bleep-y synths and strutting basslines shade the air in a cotton candy dance-punk glee as frontwoman Jen squeak-chants “Why do I feel like I have to have this?/ Why do you tell me what I want-a hear?/ We both know I don’t really this/ But it’s there…I NEED IT!!”. Is it commentary on the shameful internal back-and-forth we experience when flirting with some big and shiny purchase as the world economy crumbles around us, or just another thinly-veiled bit on drunken, nightclub-set horniness?

It doesn’t really matter. Trains of thought never get a chance to reach any sort of resolution during “Want It”’s running time as it’s infectious punch leaves all attempts at doing anything, beyond bobbing around giddily, futile.

SOFT TOY EMERGENCY – I Kno U Want It from NEWFUTURENOW on Vimeo.

Uncategorized dance-rock, electro-pop, liverpool, soft toy emergency, UK

Demands for the returns of rifles; motorcycle jackets being slung out of windows; tossed-off disses and chorus pleas to “Stay away from me”. We don’t know what’s completely going on in the suspenseful scenario that “You Don’t Need No Doctor, Sugar” sketches, but one thing is made ultimately clear: we bow to it’s pop greatness.

The track comes from the upcoming self-titled EP by The Library, an up-and-coming dance-rock act out of Los Angeles, and it’s a definite treat for the ears. Polished with a neon-y synth gloss and featuring the soul-tinged vocal sweeps of frontman Court Alexander (requisite ridiculous critic hype-tag: “It’s like if Sam Sparro and Adam Levine morphed into one through some JJ Abrams-scripted sci-fi mishap and somehow became a new lead singer for The Killers!!”), this chugging, four-minute-plus number has the epic presence of something twice as long. But we’re not complaining, cause we can’t think of anything better than being wrapped in it’s disco-rock grandeur for extended lengths of time.

Peep a minute of The Library performing the song live, than snatch up the MP3 below (The Library EP is due March 10th via Feudal Records):

You Don’t Need No Doctor, Sugar

DL: “You Don’t Need No Doctor, Sugar” (alt)

Uncategorized dance-rock, disco, los angeles, new wave, the library

We’ve come to expect the big “WE’RE BACK!!!“-stylized jump-off when it comes to U2 pushing their latest opus, but it’s doubtful anyone was anticipating something as loud and weird as No Line on the Horizon’s head-scratching lead-in “Get On Your Boots”.

Taken as a whole, “Boots”‘ pummeling strut of electro-charged fuzz-rock and Bono-yelped gibberish at first feels like a chaotic mess, with a few too many musical ideas battling for space within it’s tiny three-and-a-half minute time length. Listening to it, one almost feels a need to twist some imaginary dial and help clear out what sounds like three different radio stations meshed together.

At the same time though, when judging the song’s many inner elements separately, the track stands as one of the band’s most intriguing entries since their polarizing experimental phase of the ’90’s. From Adam Clayton’s snake-winding bassline to Edge’s fierce riff-age to Bono’s Dylan-esque rhythmic vocal attack to a grand bridge that slaps together an industrial drum stomp against infectious rap-chants of “Let me in the sound” to those teasingly brief bursts of vocal harmony, “Boots” is patched together with so many exciting individual moments, it becomes harder and harder with each new listen to easily dismiss it as the mid-life crisis modern rock fluff it initially appears to be.

A definite “wake-up” to those who’ve grown accustomed to the more conservative pop-rock leanings of U2’s post-Y2K releases All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How To Dismantlle an Atomic Bomb, it’ll be interesting to see if the rest of Horizon will fall in line with the vibrant and playful eccentricities that “Boots” serves.

No Line on the Horizon drops March 3rd. You can pre-order it here.

U2 – Get On Your Boots

Uncategorized '90's, dance-rock, rock, u2

LA band Bedtime For Toys first caught Maestro’s attention earlier in the year with their surprisingly enticing “hip hop/ fuzz-rock & b” style, especially when it was applied to some cool remakes of Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”.

Their fondness for twisted revamps of back-in-the-day R&B goodies continues in their latest creation: a hard-rockin’ stab at Rockwell’s 1984 guilty pleasure “Somebody’s Watching Me”.

Keeping in mind that any cover of the Jacksons-blessed paranoid epic must be handled with tongues planted firmly in cheek, BFT inject the record with plenty of goofy charm. From it’s kooky slathering of heavy metal guitar noise to the featured bits of icy synth-ery that used to be favored by all the popular ’80’s dance-pop tarts to singer Marchelle Bradanini’s diva-grrrl vocal vamping, their rendition of “Watching Me” is a delightful romp from start-to-finish, and it provides more-than-enough proof that catching them live would likely guarantee a fun time had by all.

Look out for more killer re-imaginations of throwback gems when they release their covers EP, BFT Iz Punk n’ B early next year.

DL: “Somebody’s Watching Me (Rockwell Cover)” (alt)

Uncategorized 80's, bedtime for toys, cover song, dance-rock

UK act The Klaxons spend much of their lyrical focus on songs about mythical lands and magical forces, but don’t let the supernatural slant keep you away from “Golden Skans”, a breezy art-rock tune recently released in the States that signals the overground exposure of some new sub-genre called “new rave”. Whatever that means.

New-rave, schmu-rave, this is indie boys with an appreciation of dance and it isn’t big enough to justify the use of some lame music critic tag, but it is nice enough to whisk you away for a couple minutes. Echoed guitars pair ever-so-nicely with creamy vocal harmonies and punchy off-kilter drumming for a spirited song about relics, disciples and light. It’s all U2 bombast with a little new age edge, and though you might not be particularly fond of it’s songwriting, it’s rush of prettiness is hard not to be impressed by. Add to it a crazy-cool video that updates The Jackson 5’s classic “Can You Feel It” clip with anime intensity and a Power Rangers color scheme and you have the perfect target for the UK press’ “next best thing” hype.

To further impress critics and bloggers is a live cover of one of the best singles of 2007. “My Love” is a pretty hard song to cover well, being it fit nicely with Justin Timberlake’s pretty-boy singing and Timbaland’s schizo production is difficult to top, but The Klaxons’ do a nice adaptation. The falsetto isn’t pulled off so well, but the drunken karaoke reading is fun and the rhythmic Coldplay arrangement carries a nice buzz. It’s all enough to make JT seem that much more cooler.

Uncategorized cover song, dance-rock, indie rock, justin timberlake, the klaxons, UK

Sound of Silver finds LCD Soundsystem singular force James Murphy attempting to do something he never focused on before: making real songs. More attentive to the meshing of indie rock and dance/ electronic music, LCD Soundsystem churned out fluke hits like the ’00’s classic “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”, but Murphy was never embraced as a true songwriter for good reason until now.

“Someone Great”, a standout track from the positively reviewed Silver, captures Murphy trying and succeeding greatly at adding compelling lyrical depth to his usual computerized arrangements.

Over a throbbing drone-like bottom-end and one-note keyboard splashes, this experimental art-pop piece is given some much needed life thanks to Murphy’s lonesome poetry. Tick-tocking his wry vocals with studied robotic prose, Murphy finds a way to give an android emotions much like the way New Order accomplished in the 80’s. “I miss the way we used to argue/ Locked in the basement,” he internalizes, realizing too late that a cherished acquaintance had moved on. It’s never clear if he’s mourning over a lover, friend or relative but such ambiguity makes this icy record a universally appealing tackling of the darkness and regret that comes with loss. Like the endless pulse of the electro production, Murphy echoes certain lines for added dramatic effect and comments on the otherwise happiness revolving around him as the amount of pain continues to bear down on his soul (“The worst is all the lovely weather/ I’m sad/ It’s not raining”).

Moving in it’s use of cold musicality to push the intended emotion, “Someone Great” positions LCD Soundsystem in a unique new headspace that smartly melds a song with a groove. Such artistic growth opens the electronic act to a whole new bed of ideas that’ll no doubt expand LCD’s faithfully enraptured fanbase.

Uncategorized dance-rock, electro-pop, lcd soundsystem