If there was any one track on Hot Chip’s grower of a fourth set One Life Stand that perfectly expressed the UK four-piece’s current obsession with marrying dancefloor euphoria with romantic yearning and could justify all on it’s own why the band’s hot streak will remain afire throughout the rest of the year, hands down it would be “I Feel Better”.
So soaked in ’90’s dance-pop theatrics that you expect some anonymous house diva (or an old incarnation of Madonna) to start wailing over it’s insistent house pulse at any given moment, “I Feel Better” bursts with an anthemic appeal from the get-go, it’s main hook, an icy string loop that’s later mirrored with the saddest steel drum sounds you’ll ever hear, drawing this mesmerizing rave prison you’ll never want to break out of.
In betwixt it’s four-on-the-floor clubby throb, singer Alexis Taylor injects his best T-Pain/ Kanye West-as-sad-robot imitation, with Auto-Tuned whimpers documenting a couple at a crossroads (“She said ‘How did we get ourselves so lost’”) followed by longings of having “one night/ together in our arms”, pitched as if it’s the sole way things can get back at track.
Ellie Goulding’s lightweight wisp of a voice may adhere well to her “Starry Eyed” single’s tender, child-like perspective on first love euphoria, but it’s in NY singer-songwriter Samuel (previously hyped here for his acoustic remake of The-Dream’s “Shawty Is The Shit”) and production team The Knocks‘ cover of the track that a far better song is crafted.
While The Knocks bring a much-needed heft to the tune’s fine, but slightly underwhelming, twee-tronica shimmer in their application of atmospheric synth washes and a toe-tapping downtown strut, Samuel’s breathy tenor acts as the perfect compliment to Ellie’s bird-like chirp, the combined power of their married vocals nicely illustrating (and making far less corny) the giddy lyrical visual of a newbie couple feeling like they’re being struck with lightning from eachother’s caressing touch.
Catch the original’s video below, followed by an MP3 of the Samuel/ Knocks remix.
Goulding’s debutLightsarrives in the UK in March; Samuel’s recently completed LP Trains To Wanderland is set for a later 2010 release.
Under Rosen’s helm, the bright and shiny crackle and pop that made “Telephone”’s original incarnation veer a little too Britney-esque and chaotic at times, is slightly downplayed for a darker electro-pop pulse, excitingly heightened by quirky, voice-affected breakdowns, fuzzed-out basslines, and a far-too-brief soul clap section around the three-minute mark (plus, it also doesn’t hurt that Beyonce’s portions are more successfully woven in here).
If only we had the power to sway label-heads (which, sigh, we don’t), we’d encourage them to use this version to accompany the forthcoming “Telephone” music video rather than the original.
One of London alt-synth-pop quintet Hot Chip’s main selling points has always been there off-kilter way of balancing geeky, urban-posturing with a sweet-toned bedroom-pop melancholia: check the R. Kelly/ WWE-inspired “Wrestlers” or their cover of Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction” or songs like Coming On Strong’s kazoo-highlighted “Keep Falling” or The Warning’s title track, which amusingly boast lines like “Give up all you suckers we the tightest muthafuckas/ And you never seen this type of shit before now” and “Hot Chip will break your legs/ Snap off your head” in the most non-threatening way ever.
That same endearing juxtaposition can be found on future addiction “One Life Stand”, the first single and title track from the Londoners’ forthcoming fourth album.
The cut jerks to life in it’s opening seconds with a thumping crunk-club strut that brings to mind Jacki-O’s 2004 raunch jam “Pussy (Real Good)” while, for a split-second, evoking the awesomely awkward image of these eternal wallflowers “making it rain” at the local strip joint. Lyrically though, Chip avoid any detours into goofy gangsta rapper braggadoccio, keeping things oh-so-smoove (or oh-so-creepy, depending on your P.O.V.) by latching onto a touching plea for eternal monogamy: “I only want to be your one life stand”, warmly croons Alexis Taylor on a hook that suddenly transforms the song into some lost, John Hughes-ian prom ballad.
A great first taste to one of the most anticipated new releases of the 2010 first quarter.
One Life Standarrives in February. Check their site for current touring info, including the April-set US dates with supporting act The xx
Swedish blog-pop royalty Robyn has popped her remixing cherry with this “Rakamonie” twist on El Perro Del Mar’s possessing Love Is Not Pop highlight “Change of Heart”, decorating it with her vocals and a low-key electro-pop touch that basically makes it sound like one of her own records.
To our ears, the original, with it’s marvelously-executed, retro-baked allure, is still the better version, but Robyn does a solid enough remixing job on “Heart” to inspire mild anticipation for whatever tinkerings she may provide for other artists’ catalogues in the future.
Opening with striking staccato vocal snippets before being sent afloat with screaming guitar and a thick bottom-end chug, then brought down to Earth with a buzzing bassline and punchy electric fretwork, the amazing first minute of “I Can Talk”, the newest single from Irish three-piece Two Door Cinema Club, carries this exciting air of a future music sensation being born in real-time.
Of course, the Kitsune-backed band’s instantaneous musical appeal will be nothing new to those who’ve been obsessively following TDCC’s quiet rise up to buzzworthiness over the past year via live gigs, remixes and tracks like the sunny “Something Good Can Work Out” and the equally catchy (and quite sweet) “Undercover Martyn”, but it’s the fizzy contagiousness of “I Can Talk” (with special note to Alex Trimble’s boy-ish delivery and a great breakdown section featuring a playful guitar exchange between all three members) that truly seals the deal of big things being on the horizon for the electro indie-pop crew.
Get the I Can Talk Remix EP here; The band’s debut album is set for a February 2010 release.
It’s only been three years since Kelis last put a studio album out (2006’s under-selling Kelis Was Here), but it definitely feels like it’s been a lot longer, what with all the TMZ-headlining drama she’s been in the center of the past couple of years. With all the changes that’s went on in her personal life since she had all the ladies chanting up their “bossy” status (filing for divorce, getting arrested, having a baby), you would think her first new solo offering in a while would be something juicy, meta and extremely catchy; maybe a sequel of sorts to her 1999 scream-fest “Caught Out There”, this time directed at cheating ex-husbands who don’t wanna pay spousal support.
Sadly the David Guetta-produced “Acapella” bears little of that gossip rag-gifting goodness, instead positioning Kelis amid a techno kaleidoscope of synth-bass bloops and clubby bottom end to sing the praises of a new man rescuing her of a dreary existence free of any “tune or scale I could play” (“Before you, my whole life was acapella,” goes the hook).
It’s an alright electronic-based tune we guess, though far away from the greatness we were anticipating from the same lady who gave us major gems like the ones mentioned above, plus “Milkshake”, “Trick Me” and the sorely under-appreciated “Young Fresh & New”; but, hey, at least we now know Kelis has begun work on a brand new project, so fingers are crossed that these (hopefully Neptunes or Andre 3000-helmed) sessions will produce the kind of sassy-weird, “I am woman, hear me roar” anthems she’s ruled with in the past.
Call us losers, but since “Meet Me Halfway” started getting endless spins through our earbuds, we’ve been scouring the World Wide Web daily hoping to come across some amazing remix that’ll only deepen our undying adoration towards the Black Eyed Peas single.
There haven’t been many to emerge (which is strange, seeing as though “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” inspired what felt like a million revamps between them both), but we did come across a couple that earned at least a couple repeat listens:
Rokuro’s Tidy Club Mix:
Helmed by Japan’s DJ Rokuro, this one follows a relatively simple remixing formula, accenting the original track with some catchy synths while giving that vocoder-assisted bridge (the track’s best non-Fergie moment) a well-appreciated repeat spin.
This second (and sadly, MP3 link-less) one was created by the same girls who delivered that cutesy acoustic cover of Drake’s “Best I Ever Had”. And like that treat, this one is equally impressive in a lo-fi, “let’s throw something together during a sleepover” kind of way, replacing Fergie’s laborious wails with a surprisingly effective Cassie-like featherweight vocal while it’s beat bypasses state-of-the-art Y3K-aiming production complexity for a simple electro throb.
Following her appearance on Cobra Starship’s Top Ten-charting guilty pleasure “Good Girls Go Bad”, Gossip Girl lead bitch/ aspiring pop star Leighton Meester gets a chance to flex her skills solo with the recently leaked “Set It On Fire”, an extremely electro-poppy number with a hook that thieves the melody from New Order’s oft-re-visited ’80’s classic “Blue Monday”.
And while it doesn’t come across as something that will be making Lady GaGa nervous of her digitized dance-pop reign in the US being threatened, an eyeroll-assisted semi-chuckle can be had in hearing the actress sing/ boast lines like “Why you think the club hot?/ Cause I set it on fire/ Why you think the carpet red?/ Cause I set it on fire”. All together now: **eyeroll**, **semi-chuckle**.
Catch it below, followed by her much more satisfying nod to ’80’s pop: a swirly cover of “Bette Davis Eyes”.
Arriving mere months before the planned-for-early-2010 premiere of The Strokes’ long-awaited fourth studio effort, “11th Dimension”, the first taste of Julian Casablancas‘ October-set solo debut Phrazes For The Young, is possibly one of the happiest-sounding things to have ever met our ears, satisfying our long-held curiosity for what a JC project would be like.
In the perky alternate universe of “Dimension”, Casablancas’ backing Strokes are replaced with a bunch of eye-lined, asymmetrical-hairdo-ed android musician-bots with the seemingly central goal of crowding the singer’s familiar lackadaisical croon with a gleeful meshing of as many ’80’s electronic pop sensibilities (a neon-lit carnival of various synth/ keyboard melodies, those wiggly guitar lines, the drum machine’s relentlessly tinny pummel underneath…) as possible in one arrangement.
That the song is nearly overwhelmed with too many great half-ideas, both in it’s ever-evolving production and the occasionally awesome Casablancas lyrical couplet (“I just nod/ I never been so good at shaking hands”) only makes it more exciting to indulge in on repeated visits, birthing a new “favorite” moment with every successive listen.
It’s an unexpectedly exciting jump-off for a solo career we always kinda wished for, but never thought we would actually receive (at least, this soon), supplying us with enough of a Strokes-y feel to keep us quenched until the new group album drops, while being “different” enough to assure us that we won’t be all Stroked-out when that fourth album release date does reach fruition. Perhaps most importantly, it provides continued solid proof that the next time the band want to go forever in between albums, we’ll no doubt be kept entertained between all the members’ respectively pleasing side-gigs (with Phrazes possibly being the one that ends up besting them all, that is, if “11th Dimension” turns out to be the album’s tone-setter and not the exception).
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
If there was any one track on Hot Chip’s grower of a fourth set One Life Stand that perfectly expressed the UK four-piece’s current obsession with marrying dancefloor euphoria with romantic yearning and could justify all on it’s own why the band’s hot streak will remain afire throughout the rest of the year, hands down it would be “I Feel Better”. 
One of London alt-synth-pop quintet 
Swedish blog-pop royalty 
Opening with striking staccato vocal snippets before being sent afloat with screaming guitar and a thick bottom-end chug, then brought down to Earth with a buzzing bassline and punchy electric fretwork, the amazing first minute of “I Can Talk”, the newest single from Irish three-piece 
It’s only been three years since Kelis last put a studio album out (2006’s under-selling Kelis Was Here), but it definitely feels like it’s been a lot longer, what with all the TMZ-headlining drama she’s been in the center of the past couple of years. With all the changes that’s went on in her personal life since she had all the ladies chanting up their 
Call us losers, but since 
Following her appearance on Cobra Starship’s Top Ten-charting guilty pleasure 
Arriving mere months before the planned-for-early-2010 premiere of The Strokes’ long-awaited fourth studio effort, “11th Dimension”, the first taste of
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