Twenty Missmatched Songs
Twenty Songs, 14 January 2007
This week's Twenty isn't quite as hot shit, track for track, as last week's but it is still pretty damn fresh. There are some songs that've literally just dropped into the chart in the last twenty minutes, let alone the last week. There are songs in here so warm we're getting scorch marks on our fingers just writing this up. We're almost proud and we didn't write a single note of it.
We burst off with Spank Rock and Bump (Switch Remix) where the man of the moment gets all trademark bumpy on the song. You know a Switch remix by the way it just bounds through that sort of almost tribal machismo-strewn house and Bump is no exception. We next up go to our favourite Blood Red Shoes and Try Harder, a record we can only assume is by no means a sideways jibe at their last record label. We assume that cuz they seem quite friendly with the Youthmovies since. It is another little art wave pop drainchord gem, though, obviously. Changing genres and moods again is Midnight Request Line by Skream. We don't love his album, we really don't. We do like his songs, though, with Midnight Request Line being another that's really stood out for us over the course of the last week, in that dark, ska-snappy, dub-n-stop way.
Over the course of the last month we've also become a bit partial to the work of American Adam Sky. Specifically, Ape-X, which is a bit proto-carcrash and very healthily bleepy, if a little old school. Good stuff, though. Although not as much nip-clamp weilding fun as Tiger Force or, in this case, their ultra colourful Syntax Error. The song makes little sense to us but since when did A Good Time have to sound rational? The next song, Face (Charlie Fanclub Remix), originally by The Black Ghosts, is alright for the first three minutes then gets very phat and squelchy for the last three and that's when it gets interesting. One of many remixes we got for that song. We will listen to them with interest anon.
In the meantime, in the world of commercial and publicly acceptible dance - pop, almost - we've got Yeah Yeah (D. Ramirez Radio Edit) by Bodyrox next up. I dunno why we chose to put the radio edit in the chart, it makes us seem even more shallow but luckily, much like our inclusion of Put Your Hands Up we don't care. We bum this song. The vocal-free original was good but her vocal fits in a slightly Simian Mobile Disco-y way. The original, however, reminds us of Exceeder by Mason, which, handily, for comparison, is right next to it in the chart. Instrumentally, Exceeder is a lot better but our dancing buddy recently pointed out the new Princess Superstar vocal edit which is, hilariously, embarrassingly, annoyingly, shit. The original was deeply progressive electro house. Good on it.
Still riding high in our hearts are Thomas Tantrum and Armchair, still filling us with light and fancy. We've tracked them down on the internet and we figure from our limited ability to research that Thomas is actually the lead singer's surname, rather than a girl fronted band just randomly having a boy name. Beautiful song, either way. As are all the songs that Field Music write, very much including In Context, which spins a web around Chez Lix like.. well.. something not as gay as a fairy, but not as tactile as a spider. A butterfly spinning silk perhaps. Either way, wonderful. You know.
Also, very much poles apart from the cranky electro abbrasion of Phones' Sharpen The Knives which does exactly what it says on the tin, scraping some very caustic metal electro noise across some very harsh beats in a very unrelenting way until you just wished new rave dares to sound as bloody bitter. We love a bit of noise and this is a lot of it.
What we love about this chart, though, why we like the look of this year, is the balance of it. For every cute little indie track we've got pure dancefloor liquid, for every angular moment we've got smoother than black silk dubstep or cracked soul, we've got electro bump next to childlike pop wonderment. We've got the carcrash disco of Phones next to...
The kings of claustro-rock This Et Al and another of the ten prime cuts of genius from their recent Baby Machine album, this time in the shape of Of National Importance. It builds and towers and implodes like the best of all your favourite rock bands and we love it. We've got it in this chart next to the strings and doom of Ears' Everything Bless, Everything Fine. The boy owes us a record. Bastard. Oh well, in the meantime this track is dark, in the classic bum skully sense of the word. The boy laces a track and LG apparently is pretty tight too. Bad boy next the most library born nice boys of indie at the moment but we've got all the time in the world for the geeks of GoodBooks. I mean, they might not even be geeks, although their songs - such as recent single Leni - are very fey. Very cutesy. For all they lack in smack in the face strength they make up for in irrefutable skill, though. Lovely lovely lovely stuff.
As is Circle Of Sorrow by the sensually good Various Production, who we didn't bum before but by bloody hell do now. It's not really dubstep although their is a wideboy gait to some of their stuff. This is just strictly warm and cold rain and spring breeze acoustic leftfield electronic downtempo post-bliss. Another track from the doesn't-put-a-foot-wrong album. As is, in a way, Ross Ross Ross by our man of the year so far SebastiAn. It started, we guess, with his DJ set, but it was Head/Off on the Alkan Mixmag mix CD that pursuaded us to get Ross Ross Ross proper (after having it on Simian Mobile Disco's NME mix CD). What a choice. What a producer. What a man.
Which brings us to the similarly cut and thrust everywhere but a straight line disaster house of Her by newie Kissy Sell Out, an Essex boy with is eyes on the prize currently held by Paris. Sickly acidic, so minute it could actually cut you and overlaid with beats so wobbly a boy falls of his bike somewhere in the world every time your subwoofer pumps another one out, this is hot shit and a name we won't soon forget (as soon as we remember it - Kissy Make Peace, Kissy Buy Back, Kissy what now?). Much like the name of the song on Wonder's album featuring Virus Syndicate. Oh yes, Can't Stand It. Is it, or is it not true that the first line of the song is like bolton you've been wondering why virus is so sick. We're sure it is. It doesn't matter, though, because it's chock full of slam dunk lines over a fiendishly slow burning, surprisingly acidy riddim (for a grime track). Did we mention how chock full of talent this week's Twenty is?
Take, for example, the first lady of Ed Banger, Uffie and her boyfriend Feadz. We know Feadz is her boyfriend because she can't stop banging on about him. Doesn't matter though because they're hot shit together and heaven knows if Pop The Glock is the product of them together, we hope they never split. Smooth and downtempo and yet still addiction within the first two minutes and since we got hooked way back then we've not really been able to unhook ourselves. Their other songs are almost as good and the remixes are also full of skill.
Speaking of which, the remix of that track is by the same man who remixed this Mylo track. So, everyone, put your hands together for our number one, Paris Four Hundred (SebastiAn Rmx). That's two tracks in this weeks top five and one on last weeks. Good tally so far, eh? Especially since it's only the two this week cuz putting six in would be rude. It took a listen and half to fully appreciate this especially since the other remixes (and the original) are all, at most, alright. Unlike fellow Francer Etienne De Crécy though, SebastiAn drops all sorts of science on the song and somehow managed to weave the original slightly dull throwback house track into a fully choppy, mashed up series of thumping beats and irrationally well-chosen hammer horror chords and sound effects, like the corpse of the original after a horrible, factory accident brough awkwardly back to life. The boy works miracles, we swear it. SebastiAn from France walks on water.
This week's Twenty isn't quite as hot shit, track for track, as last week's but it is still pretty damn fresh. There are some songs that've literally just dropped into the chart in the last twenty minutes, let alone the last week. There are songs in here so warm we're getting scorch marks on our fingers just writing this up. We're almost proud and we didn't write a single note of it.
We burst off with Spank Rock and Bump (Switch Remix) where the man of the moment gets all trademark bumpy on the song. You know a Switch remix by the way it just bounds through that sort of almost tribal machismo-strewn house and Bump is no exception. We next up go to our favourite Blood Red Shoes and Try Harder, a record we can only assume is by no means a sideways jibe at their last record label. We assume that cuz they seem quite friendly with the Youthmovies since. It is another little art wave pop drainchord gem, though, obviously. Changing genres and moods again is Midnight Request Line by Skream. We don't love his album, we really don't. We do like his songs, though, with Midnight Request Line being another that's really stood out for us over the course of the last week, in that dark, ska-snappy, dub-n-stop way.
Over the course of the last month we've also become a bit partial to the work of American Adam Sky. Specifically, Ape-X, which is a bit proto-carcrash and very healthily bleepy, if a little old school. Good stuff, though. Although not as much nip-clamp weilding fun as Tiger Force or, in this case, their ultra colourful Syntax Error. The song makes little sense to us but since when did A Good Time have to sound rational? The next song, Face (Charlie Fanclub Remix), originally by The Black Ghosts, is alright for the first three minutes then gets very phat and squelchy for the last three and that's when it gets interesting. One of many remixes we got for that song. We will listen to them with interest anon.
In the meantime, in the world of commercial and publicly acceptible dance - pop, almost - we've got Yeah Yeah (D. Ramirez Radio Edit) by Bodyrox next up. I dunno why we chose to put the radio edit in the chart, it makes us seem even more shallow but luckily, much like our inclusion of Put Your Hands Up we don't care. We bum this song. The vocal-free original was good but her vocal fits in a slightly Simian Mobile Disco-y way. The original, however, reminds us of Exceeder by Mason, which, handily, for comparison, is right next to it in the chart. Instrumentally, Exceeder is a lot better but our dancing buddy recently pointed out the new Princess Superstar vocal edit which is, hilariously, embarrassingly, annoyingly, shit. The original was deeply progressive electro house. Good on it.
Still riding high in our hearts are Thomas Tantrum and Armchair, still filling us with light and fancy. We've tracked them down on the internet and we figure from our limited ability to research that Thomas is actually the lead singer's surname, rather than a girl fronted band just randomly having a boy name. Beautiful song, either way. As are all the songs that Field Music write, very much including In Context, which spins a web around Chez Lix like.. well.. something not as gay as a fairy, but not as tactile as a spider. A butterfly spinning silk perhaps. Either way, wonderful. You know.
Also, very much poles apart from the cranky electro abbrasion of Phones' Sharpen The Knives which does exactly what it says on the tin, scraping some very caustic metal electro noise across some very harsh beats in a very unrelenting way until you just wished new rave dares to sound as bloody bitter. We love a bit of noise and this is a lot of it.
What we love about this chart, though, why we like the look of this year, is the balance of it. For every cute little indie track we've got pure dancefloor liquid, for every angular moment we've got smoother than black silk dubstep or cracked soul, we've got electro bump next to childlike pop wonderment. We've got the carcrash disco of Phones next to...
The kings of claustro-rock This Et Al and another of the ten prime cuts of genius from their recent Baby Machine album, this time in the shape of Of National Importance. It builds and towers and implodes like the best of all your favourite rock bands and we love it. We've got it in this chart next to the strings and doom of Ears' Everything Bless, Everything Fine. The boy owes us a record. Bastard. Oh well, in the meantime this track is dark, in the classic bum skully sense of the word. The boy laces a track and LG apparently is pretty tight too. Bad boy next the most library born nice boys of indie at the moment but we've got all the time in the world for the geeks of GoodBooks. I mean, they might not even be geeks, although their songs - such as recent single Leni - are very fey. Very cutesy. For all they lack in smack in the face strength they make up for in irrefutable skill, though. Lovely lovely lovely stuff.
As is Circle Of Sorrow by the sensually good Various Production, who we didn't bum before but by bloody hell do now. It's not really dubstep although their is a wideboy gait to some of their stuff. This is just strictly warm and cold rain and spring breeze acoustic leftfield electronic downtempo post-bliss. Another track from the doesn't-put-a-foot-wrong album. As is, in a way, Ross Ross Ross by our man of the year so far SebastiAn. It started, we guess, with his DJ set, but it was Head/Off on the Alkan Mixmag mix CD that pursuaded us to get Ross Ross Ross proper (after having it on Simian Mobile Disco's NME mix CD). What a choice. What a producer. What a man.
Which brings us to the similarly cut and thrust everywhere but a straight line disaster house of Her by newie Kissy Sell Out, an Essex boy with is eyes on the prize currently held by Paris. Sickly acidic, so minute it could actually cut you and overlaid with beats so wobbly a boy falls of his bike somewhere in the world every time your subwoofer pumps another one out, this is hot shit and a name we won't soon forget (as soon as we remember it - Kissy Make Peace, Kissy Buy Back, Kissy what now?). Much like the name of the song on Wonder's album featuring Virus Syndicate. Oh yes, Can't Stand It. Is it, or is it not true that the first line of the song is like bolton you've been wondering why virus is so sick. We're sure it is. It doesn't matter, though, because it's chock full of slam dunk lines over a fiendishly slow burning, surprisingly acidy riddim (for a grime track). Did we mention how chock full of talent this week's Twenty is?
Take, for example, the first lady of Ed Banger, Uffie and her boyfriend Feadz. We know Feadz is her boyfriend because she can't stop banging on about him. Doesn't matter though because they're hot shit together and heaven knows if Pop The Glock is the product of them together, we hope they never split. Smooth and downtempo and yet still addiction within the first two minutes and since we got hooked way back then we've not really been able to unhook ourselves. Their other songs are almost as good and the remixes are also full of skill.
Speaking of which, the remix of that track is by the same man who remixed this Mylo track. So, everyone, put your hands together for our number one, Paris Four Hundred (SebastiAn Rmx). That's two tracks in this weeks top five and one on last weeks. Good tally so far, eh? Especially since it's only the two this week cuz putting six in would be rude. It took a listen and half to fully appreciate this especially since the other remixes (and the original) are all, at most, alright. Unlike fellow Francer Etienne De Crécy though, SebastiAn drops all sorts of science on the song and somehow managed to weave the original slightly dull throwback house track into a fully choppy, mashed up series of thumping beats and irrationally well-chosen hammer horror chords and sound effects, like the corpse of the original after a horrible, factory accident brough awkwardly back to life. The boy works miracles, we swear it. SebastiAn from France walks on water.