Tribal drums and looping, shiny samples, South East London foursome Beaty Heart are making a welcome appearance at Off Modern on the 4th of March. We caught up with drummer/samplist/vocalist Charlie Rotberg to see how it’s all coming along, and swipe an exclusive new track from him.
O/M
Hello Charlie, can you give me a tiny wee [...]

It’s pretty cold and grotty out there today. Why not bounce the sunshine off some of some paranoid silverpop? Golau Glau are a collective of musicians and photographers from Wales. We took a wrong turn in cyberspace and ended up at their website and we’re mighty pleased we did. If they let us we’ll be collaborating with them in the future, we like their mantra; they give away their music for free on their blog and last.fm. They’ve also remixed a bunch of top bands including previous bands from two previous installments of Off Modern: Crystal Fighters and Gyratory System. Enjoy!

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN]

Click above to watch the brand new video for “I Like Triangles” by Hounds of Hate directed by Jayne Helliwell in collaboration with Yuri Pattison, Edited by Jayne Helliwell.

“I Like Triangles” is out on Back Yard Recordings imminently.
Keep an eye on www.myspace.com/houndsofhate for release details, further collaborations with Hype Williams and a US Tour in May.

[CLICK TO READ ARTICLE]

South Rakkas Crew – The Stimulus Package
It may be a couple of weeks late, but this entirely free album from the lazy Santas at South Rakkas still stakes a claim to be my favourite Christmas present of the year. Tracks explode all over the shop with an digi dancehall sound that comes on like The Bug making Benny Benassi electro bass without any trace of dank English misery, or indeed, irony. It’s a big dumb party with guests and genres popping up, smashing together, and staggering off to the dancefloor, limbs and pigeon holes all akimbo. Vocalists include Toddla T cohort Serocee, bashment legend Capleton and, somewhat bizarrely, indescribable San Fran freakniks Deerhoof. The tracks range from the undisputed dancefloor smash ‘Double Up Riddim’ to the dubstep meets Under Mi Sensi bass bubbling of ‘Rise’ to ‘Hands Up’s pure classic techno chords and steppas baile funk. Listened to in one sitting, the full set can be a bit wearying in its relentless party action, and personally it all gets a bit too much for me on stinking Mylo riddim -can you guess which Mylo track gets sampled …?— but the exuberance of the other songs on here more than make up for this, and the sheer fucking weirdness of the Deerhoof collaborations is worth the (free) entry alone. Download here — http://maddecent.com/stimulus/

SCNDL – Need To Know
I’ve got a super soft spot for gay US dark house anthems with a sarky queen talking over the top. Bam Bam’s ‘Where Is Your Child’, The Horrorist’s ‘One Night In New York City’, bangers every time. This track is carrying on this proud tradition, and does a fine job to. Creepy descending acidy riffs, piano break downs, grinding nasty bass lines and crucially, a big queen asking if ‘you wanna get in’. It’s all a bit Berlin sex dungeon and, to be fair, conjures up the image of a sweaty middle aged pervert with a very very serious face wearing a leather apron and dancing with an accountant who’s told his wife he’s out watching ‘the match’. Kind of. But that’s not a criticism.

Skepta – Bad Boy
Ridculously Tiesto sized massiveness. I know progress is good and everything but when did Skepta decide to turn into Haddaway ? I literally don’t understand, I do not understand. How do we find ourselves a decade away from the birth of grime stuck with this nonsense ? Skepta has been responsible for some bonafide classics- Duppy and Too Many Men spring to mind, but shitting hell he can pull out some strange old decisions when we wants to. This little number kind of lifts the chorus from Underworld’s Born Slippy and that’s basically all you need to know. If you think Skepta doing that sounds like it’s going to be a good thing you may like this. If, like me, you find the staggeringly woeful creative blind alley that half of this countries formerly great MCs have leadenly pranced down a sad and depressing event it’s probably best to steer clear. I guess it’s catchy enough and the track isn’t irredeemably bad, but then again, neither, necessarily, is the Cheeky V, the cocktail Charlotte Church invented containing 3 bottles of Blue WKD and a shit load of port. It is however, very pikey.

Fiction – To Stick To
Fiction are 4 piece based in South London. They channel a bit of Postcard records with elements of Orange Juice and Josef K coming through the jangling guitars and fey vocals, and this year promises to be a big one for them. This track has dreamlike whispery vocals with a hint of celebrity racist Morrissey creeping into the languid swoops of lines such as “When you last checked you didn’t like the taste// Hunger could persuade you// Since it was suggested I was taking shape// A shape will take you”. The backing ‘aaaahs’ and tambourine hits add to a sensation of a cosy, particularly English forlornness, making this an ideal piece to listen to whilst pressed against the radiator, drinking a milky cuppa and staring out at the white expanse that has swept January.
Download here: http://offmodern.com/news/index.php/fictiontostickto/

Maxwell D - Blackberry Hype
Finally getting a full release after knocking around on the underground for half a year now,
this is the former Pay As You Go MCs official entry into the brave new world of UK Funky,
and while he may have pissed off Lil Silva by riding one of his beats unbidden, and while the
lyrics are bollocks nonsense about phones most hoodrats had 5 years ago, this definately works.
After the skank craze of 2009 vocal funky is here to stay and a splash of personality on a genre that skates the big bottomless rink of deep house is a breathe of fresh air. It’s not big or clever but it bangs in the club, and if what the kids think counts for anything I had 15 teenagers request it this week alone.

Joensuu 1685 - Im On Fire
Big throbbing mother ship drums. squeals and drones and retro future synths . Mary Chain vocals swoop in a cathedral of gaze and it’s kind of like Muse if they werent a four letter word. This band have a stupid name and a great sound, somewhere between the stadium and the underground, prog in a good way, and beholden to single notes of bass playing skunkbucket riffs for heavy heads nodding until the levy breaks and guitars crash in. Best seen live, the vinyl, sick as it is, just whets the appitite for the show. A joy, pressed in 300 copies. Buy it now and feel smug hating em when they get massive

http://www.myspace.com/joensuu1685

Miike Snow - Silvia
The new single from Swedish Britney Spears producers Miike Snow opens with a very serious, very portentious piano line, and continues in the same poe faced manner throughout. Hyper polished and anemically epic, this has drivetime anthem written all over- big synth arpeggios, marching drums, and insipid lyrics combine to make, well, nothing much really. Perhaps a faint impression of a neatly made wet bed. Onto the remixes then, and it seems Sinden’s managed to perform the finest turd sprucing with a skippy carnival mix that avoids his more clownish tendencies and delivers a hypnotic bass line underpinning choice vocal cuts and nice touchs of melancholy. Emalkay hands in a dubstep mix that can only disappoint after the might of recent killer ‘When I Look At You’. Here he just whacks a load of sub under the original to make the kind of palatable dubstep, one eye coldly cocked towards daytime radio, that has been flooding out since Skream’s La Roux rework. And finally, Felix Da Housecat comes along like its 2003 with a big electro rock banger which would probably sound great changed off your nut in a Miami mega club, but just sounds annoying on a freezing afternoon in Blighty.

Lindstrom & Christabelle - Lovesick
With bass and horns lifted straight from Bobby Byrd’s 70s rarity ‘Headquarters’ Lindstrom’s new project sees him putting the space disco to one side and instead focusing his considerable studio chops on remodelling squelchy electro funk. Opening with breathy spoken vocals, Lovesick benefits from the Norwegian producers’ understanding of the importance of space, with the track being given plenty of room to do it’s thing without ever being swamped by uneccessary fussiness. The signature disco guitar chugs along carrying the beat, pianos stab in and out and Christabelle’s vocals fit in perfectly. Cruically ‘Lovesick’ pulls off the tricky maneouveur of wearing it’s influences proudly on it’s sleeve without becoming a pale imitation of them, managing to sound both retro and relevent. On this form the album should be a winner.

These New Puritans – We Want War
God bless you Puritans. The most under rated band in England have returned to the fray with a 7 and-a-bit minute claustrophobic neo classical opus the likes of which these ears haven’t heard since Radiohead’s misery opera heyday. We Want War kicks off all grimey DavincHe style discordant brass, marching gulf war drums, mutant voices and vicious little whispers before switching half way through to a sprawling choral freefall. Veering between the towering and terrifying, this tune has you wondering why more doom laden orchestral epics don’t pepper their epiphanies with sword drawing sound effects, because they’re pretty fucking amazing sounding here.

Hot Chip – One Life Stand
One time back when the internet consisted of a single big computer called HAL 57 and the only people who had mobile phones were dickheads or criminals, we tried to put Hot Chip on in a small pub in New Cross. They didn’t show up because the drummer had the flesh eating disease that everyone got for a week in 2002, and as a result the fairly ropey band I was flailing away in headlined, getting to play to hordes of screaming girls and sweaty palmed teenage boys. Since then I’ve always loved the ‘Chip, so I’m happy to say that this tune, even though it’s not really as big as Ready For the Floor and certainly won’t have the same all conqueringness as Over & Over, is still 87% brilliant, with skanking bass, warping carnival steel drums and the inevitable heart-rending chorus where Alexis Taylor sings so mournfully and so beautifully that you realise that Hot Chip are a genuine national treasure whom we should all cherise forevermore.

The Count & Sinden – Strange Things (Remixes)
My wife hates drum n bass in all its forms and she would definitely hate this record. I however am an ORIGINAL JUNGLIST and go fucking mental for it. Therefore, whilst the original of Strange Things is kind of a shit reimagining of ’98 dull and bass, the High Rankin remix is a massive and ridiculous amen feast that’s making me bounce up and down in my (junglist) swivel chair. It’s got a dubsteppy speeding up breakdown half way through and loads of ragga shouting and stooopid snares and sounds like High Rankin genuinely loves Congo Natty and Remarc and probably knows all the words to Original Nuttah, including the indecipherable ones UK Apache made up when he was taking a break from inventing jungle.

Chelley – Took The Night
‘Sassy’ is an unfortunate word. Does anyone actively want to be described as sassy ? To be honest I thought no one ever really, truly wanted to describe themselves as ‘bonkers’ but ooo-eeee it turns out I was wrong on that count. So I’m going to say that this is sassy. Its got a kids playground chanty vocal and an RnB beat at a house tempo similar to the type Pitbull likes to deliver his wisdom over. It starts off with some haters bitching in a manner not heard since ‘Baby Got Back’ then kicks in with the big club drums and general sass. And it really really gets stuck in your head which isn’t either a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just a thing.

Eminem – Drop The Bomb On ‘Em
I’ve never understood why Sting’s ridiculous Jamaican accent has been allowed to pass entirely unmolested. It’s the great unspoken shame of a nation. For example: “Giant steps are what I take // Walkin on de moon” What was he thinking ? And how has he slipped it under the radar for so long ? Richard Madeley does one shonky Ali G impersonation and is hounded from our screens. Sting builds a career out of an ability to pronounce ‘bacon’ as ‘beer can’ and makes millions. Bewildering. Still, it seems Eminem was taking notes, as he kicks off this new banger with a few stinking cod dancehall “bambaclaarts” before thankfully sacking off the crap accent and settling down to prove that he’s still one of the illest MCs alive. The beat is one of the standard piano chuggers that Dre could knock out in a coma, but it allows Em room to lyrically dance over the bars, tossing out references to a host of his favourite fictional characters, from Freddy Kruger to Stringer Bell via “Captain America on a ferris wheel”. Tis good to have him back.

Gramaphonedzie – Why Don’t You
If you’ve been looking for that elusive bridge that’ll link your love of burlesque (you naughty devil) with your propensity to ‘get on one’ down Shoreditch of a Saturday night, then this slickly produced bag of shit ensures you need look no further. Coming from a fine lineage of songs that cock about with a 40s swing band sample and some pointless house beats, this is essentially ‘Doop’ for a new decade, and set to be just as huge. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being a curmudgeon. No. Hold on, I’ve just listened again and it’s total gash. Possibly a number one come the new year. Jesus. The bloke who’s responsible also wrote the theme for Serbian Big Brother, which makes him the Balkan Paul Oakenfold. Make of that that you will.

POPO – Knife Iz Yung
Pallet cleansing garage punk that makes everything better and lasts for 1 minute and 27 seconds. The twinned vocals swoop lysergically up and down, the guitars explode, sound scratchy and broke, and the whole thing is brilliant and grimy and melodic and then over. It’d be weird if this review took longer to read than the song does to listen, so I’ll just mention that Mad Decent are putting out POPO’s album sometime early 2010 and leave it at that.

Nouveau Yorican – Boriqua
OK, well this came out a week or so ago, so I’ve slept on it a touch– pretty dumb on my part seeing as it’s come from the Sound Pelligrino, the label responsible for a mini tsunami of tropical fresh dancefloor hits throughout ’09. This time the increasingly omnipresent Laidback Luke joins forces with Gina Turner (who I’ve honestly never heard of) to turn out the JACK. Between them they offer up an ace slice of bompty house conceived in a sweatsticky warehouse located some mythical place between noughties Holland and eighties Chicago. The tune doesn’t piss about too much, instead staying nice and tracky, riding on a pitch perfect 303 bassline that wobbles along just fine until the synth stabs leap out of nowhere in a dirty great popper rush that’s 8 parts hands-in-the-air; 2 parts pull-a-techno-face. The whole thing pulls off the tricky task of sounding like classic house with all the shit bits taken out, like watching Stephen King’s It but without the bit where Pennywise turns into a cretinous 70 foot formica cockroach. Oh, and extra marks to the Harvard Bass mix for stripping the track down to a sinuous, jerking bass skeleton…

Last Thursday I went for Lunch with my friend Phil, he plays in an excellent band called King and the Olive Fields, they are probably the sweetest proposition about, anyway after drinking coffee and eating vegetable soup he brought up the fact that they’ve got an EP coming out in February and I said I’d get something up on Off Modern about it. Here it is. The record comes out on February 22nd in all your favourite record shops, if you buy it at Puregroove you’ll also get some free gifts, but you can pre order it here. There is also a single launch party on the 12th of February at the Duke of Uke on Hanbury Street, just off Brick Lane.

If you’d like a sneaky free preview, here’s the track Postcards, and a free download of it.

[CLICK TO DOWNLOAD]

The next Off Modern event is swiftly approaching, it is happening on January the 14th, at Corsica Studios, between 9pm and 3am, there will be live music from Welsh psych boys, Race Horses, and London’s Wild Palms. As always Off Modern’s residents, Tomfoolery vs Nasty McQuaid will be playing records till three am, we also have the hotly tipped future superstar dj Stopmakingme making an appearance, and guess what, he has kindly made us a super exclusive mix, which you can listen to here.

Art this month is being supplied by Guy Gormley, who has created an immersive event for our second room, and Time To Waste will also be exhibiting work throughout the venue. As well as all this we will be holding a zine fair, where you’ll be able to get some preview posters from the new Off Modern journal, as well as work from Ditto Press, Clinic, Gute Luft and Holy Ghost. If you’ve got something you’d like to sell, please email Will and let him know, his email address is will@offmodern.com.

Try and brave the snow because, as always, its lovely see you.

…………………………………………………
MUSIC:
Race Horses LIVE
http://www.myspace.com/racehorsesmusic

Wild Palms LIVE
http://www.myspace.com/wearewildpalms

DJs:
Stopmakingme (AITBF/ Kill Em All/ Fabric)
http://www.myspace.com/stopmakingme

+ OFF MODERN Residents Tomfoolery & Nasty McQuaid

…………………………………………………
ART:
An installation by Guy Gormley in the Gallery Room.

&
Time To Waste collective will be presenting an exhibition throughout the venue

&
Off Modern Presents… a Zine fair featuring some of our favorite DIY organisations.

…………………………………………………..
9pm-3am
FREE before 10pm / Five Pounds After

Fiction have just come out the recording studio in Liverpool, we thought we’d catch up with their bass player Daniel Djan, see how he is, and give you a little preview and a free exclusive download of their new song To Stick To [see bottom of post]

………………………..

O/M
hi dan
lets do a little interview to accompany the new fiction song

DANIEL
ok
go ahead

O/M
whats your favourite colour?

DANIEL
yellink
ok yellow
NO, pink
it’s green really

O/M
ok ok
blondes or brunettes?

DANIEL
blondes
but because blondes usually dont like me ill say brunettes

O/M
poor dan
england or germany?

DANIEL
er
france

O/M
interesting
mike or james?

DANIEL
nick

O/M
yeah

DANIEL
ha

O/M
good old nick

DANIEL
i know
brilliant guy
and he keeps lending me his clothes

O/M
lending?
or are you nicking again?
what’s your favourite bass solo?

DANIEL
not a big fan of bass solos, but my favourite bassist is probably sting. he’s all i ever want to be. watch out for my solo record, it’s in the pipeline for later this year.

O/M
just you and your bass?
dan djan’s low key affair

DANIEL
german man in new cross

O/M
sick
i cant wait
its gonna be massive
which is better
topshop or h&m

DANIEL
h&m

O/M
got any jokes?

DANIEL
just myself

O/M
this is all gold

DANIEL
im an instant star
just add water and stir

O/M
i think we’ll leave it at that

DANIEL
awesome

O/M
got to keep some mystery

DANIEL
when are you posting it up

O/M
now

DANIEL
cool

O/M
over and out

………………………..

DOWNLOAD TO STICK TO HERE OR CLICK TO LISTEN.

Now we don’t usually go down the whole ‘music piracy’ vibe on this website, but it is Christmas, so whatever, we’re giving you a lovely free download of Phil Spector’s Christmas Album, because it’s great. You can download it by clicking here. To show your love to old Phil, you should send him a letter or something, he’s locked up in Corcoran State Prison with Charlie Manson. He can be reached here; PHIL SPECTOR P.O. Box 8800, Corcoran, CA 93212-8309. I’m sure he’d appreciate it. Maybe.

TRACKLISTING.

1. Darlene Love, White Christmas
2. The Ronettes. Frosty the Snowman
3. Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, The Bells of St. Mary
4. The Crystals, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
5. The Ronettes, Sleigh Ride
6. Darlene Love, Marshmallow World
7. The Ronettes, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
8. The Crystals, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
9. Darlene Love, Winter Wonderland
10. The Crystals, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
11. Darlene Love, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
12. Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, Here Comes Santa Claus
13. Phil Spector and Artists, Silent Night

This originally appeared here

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Off Modern are a group of guys from South London that for some reason have a super serious logo but put on really great art shows and parties, I think there’s four of them but the one I know best is a guy called Felix who always plays love songs when he DJs. Art guys are supposed to play difficult or clever music but Felix opts for songs that makes you want to dance and cry into your beer about girls, which is a million times better.

I asked him to make a mix for us, which would have been great on its own, but he went that extra mile and contacted wig wearing actress killer and sometime producer Phil Spector to put together some tracks with him. Here’s the email I got back when I sent over some questions:

FAO OF ROBERT FOSTER. FROM THE DESK OF PHIL SPECTOR. CORCORAN STATE PRISON, CALIFORNIA.

A Mixtape Compiled by Phil Spector on the behalf of Off Modern.

Have you made a lot of mixtapes for girls?
No. I produced and wrote hit records for twenty years, I married Veronica Bennett (of the Ronnettes) and made her sing songs I’d written, I never made any mixtapes, this is my first one.

Why do you think there are so many love songs, even in genres not designed for them, like punk?
I have no idea. I’ve worked with John Lennon and The Ramones, is the best you can come up with?

Do you think we’re miserable so we listen to pop music or we listen to pop music and it makes us miserable (like in the film High Fidelity)?
No comment.

Are you unlucky in love?
I shot an actress in the face.

Every fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with?
Please don’t print a picture of me wearing that massive wig during my court case.

1. Whole Wide World – Wreckless Eric
2. My Sweet Potato – Booker T And The Mgs
3. Sugar Sugar – Mad Lads
4. She’s like Heroin to me – Gun Club
5. There, There, My Dear – Dexys Midnight Runners
6. Spanish Harlem – Ben E. King
7. B-A-B-Y – Carla Thomas
8. Make It Me – Premiers
9. He’s a Rebel – The Crystals
10. Whiskey Heaven – Fats Domino
11. I’m Waiting For The Day – Beach Boys
12. Please Return To Me – Fleets
13. You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care) – Buddy Holly
14. Poison Ivy – The Rolling Stones
15. Almost Gold – The Jesus and Mary Chain
16. Kitch You’re So Sweet – Lord Kitchener
17. Love Mi Ses – Top Cat
18. Molly’s Lips – Nirvana
19. Come, Let Us Go Back To God – Sam Cooke
20. Helden – David Bowie

DOWNLOAD: HERE

This originally appeared here

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INTERVIEW WITH LUCKY DRAGONS

by Felix L. Petty

I’ve been to Los Angeles twice now and I’m yet to properly work it out, it is inhumanly big, varying, sprawling, stretching out forever. It is a city full of smog, but there is also the sunshine that breaks through it, which is as good a place to start with describing Lucky Dragons as any. Starting up in 1999, Lucky Dragons are Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara. Fischbeck conceived of the band as a never-ending project that could encompass any number of different people at any different time, the music they make together is startlingly disparate in its style, in that you never quite know where you’re going to end up next. LD have released four records this year, and yet somehow the disparity in certain elements of their musical practice only serves to tighten it all together as a organic unit; Lucky Dragons never allow you to take song structures and rhythms for granted. The melodies (sounds might be more accurate a description of some of their work) surface, disappear and reappear, creating a utopian techno-hippy fantasy world that wraps itself around your brain.

I managed to catch up with Luke and Sarah after playing at the ICA’s Calling Out Of Context festival of avant-garde music, their approach to playing live feels as much like a Fluxus (more on this later) event as it does a traditional gig. As I enter the theatre of the ICA I was immediately confronted with a tiny space on the floor covered in all manner of intricate machinery and home made objects, some of them look like halved coconuts, there are two laptops, a mess of wires and absolutely no conventional instruments. The crowd are sitting cross-legged on the floor. Within moments of starting to play a modified projector is turned on and CDs are passed round to audience members to play with in the beams which splash the audience and band with rainbows of light. This is only the start of a night of audience participation in which we are all actively asked to take part in a strange tribal celebration of music. I think I actually catch a couple kissing whilst engaging in some euphoric moment of audience participation. The gig isn’t really like anything I’ve witnessed before, there aren’t really songs, only moments, that lead onto other moments, it isn’t like a traditional BAND -> AUDIENCE gig, they aren’t on stage for a start, and it isn’t a gimmick either, its an integral part of how the band operate in a live environment. The band simply play, and at certain points they invite the audience to play with them, whether this is generating sounds through their bodies (see the Making A Baby project for more of this) by holding onto what appear to be ropes and creating strange pulsating sounds, projections of flowers and buildings vibrate on the walls, almost in time with Fischbeck’s looping musical progressions and Sarah Rara’s ethereal chanting.

Hi guys, how are you? How was the gig?

SARAH RARA: Really good thanks; the crowd were really into it, which is nice, especially as the way we make music relies as much upon the audience as ourselves.

I’m curious as to how you plan a Lucky Dragons show,?

SARAH RARA: Well we don’t have a traditional set list, so we’re much more interested in seeing where things go themselves, sort of setting them loose and seeing how the audience react and interact with them.

Do you approach a show differently when you are playing in an environment like the ICA, which is probably much better known as an art institution than a musical venue?

SARAH RARA: I don’t think so; we’ve always found it more interesting to take the same approach to each show and then see how it translates to different environments, whether that’s playing in a church hall, a youth centre, a punk club or an art gallery. You know we have a very interactive way of making music, we like to get different responses by taking it into different situations and seeing the way audience participation changes.

You named your first record f_uxus 0.01, I’m assuming this is a reference to Fluxus.

SARAH RARA: Yeah, that’s true.

So how much does the whole Fluxus thing influence you? Are you wary of any associations that could be made between yourself and people like Dick Higgins?

SARAH RARA: I don’t think so, we’re really influenced by it, the whole overlapping of the visual and musical aspects of Lucky Dragons, and the whole idea about audience participation and the way they used chance and instruction to create the work. We really like the way you can start something and see how it grows and changes as the show goes on and people cooperate with us and each other in different ways.

So would you define Lucky Dragons as a musical or artistic project?

SARAH RARA: We don’t really differentiate, there are certain aspects of both, but we’re not one or the other. I don’t have any formal musical training for example, and our concerts aren’t like normal concerts either.

Does living in Los Angeles influence the way in which you make music?

LUKE FISCHBECK: Where we live has always been the material from which everything we do comes from, it’s the way we introduce ourselves and the first thing we ask people when we meet them: “where are you from?” It’s the beginning of any exchange we can make. LA doesn’t make sense, it’s sprawling and shaking and rolling and falling apart and caving in on itself and bursting with life and very quiet most of the time. Some cities build up, LA builds in and out, through and on, and the more we travel in support of this place, as ambassadors or whatever, the more we realize how strange and beautiful this specific kind of growth is and how difficult it is to translate.

Are you conscious of a part you might play in a ‘scene’ or community that’s developing there at the moment?

SARAH RARA: I think people have a really preconceived image of what Los Angeles is like, its really easy to see it as this big, fake, city, when there are lots of other things going on at the moment that are really exciting, like the Smell for instance, and the scene that’s developed around it.

LUKE FISCHBECK: Everyone is friends with everyone, life is very slow, everything is easy and everything is possible.

But do you see yourselves as being part of that whole lo-fi punk thing going on in LA at the moment?

SARAH RARA: Well I think we share a lot of things in common; you know there is a certain ethos behind the Smell that we share and believe in too, the all ages, alcohol free thing, there is such a nice, genuine atmosphere there, its lovely to be a part of it.

You’ve been going to ten years now, do you start to look back upon you’re earlier works and reassess them?

LUKE FISCHBECK: Well we’ve been looking back and re-assessing since the beginning, it’s a huge part of how we move forward. Not having any fear of correcting mistakes and re-doing things we feel could be finished in a better way. We’ve even re-used names of things if they’re better suited to something new.

SARAH RARA: Luke conceived of Lucky Dragons as a project that meant we could work with all these different people if he wanted too.

LUKE FISCHBECK: There was a plan from the beginning to never break-up this band, just to see what that would do, removing that drama. So we haven’t been as precious about so many things, always moving forward in a way that recycles and re-edits and tidies up.

SARAH RARA: So I guess we don’t really reassess what we’ve done but more we try to build upon it, see how we develop our ideas and take it from there.

LUKE FISCHBECK: It’s a continual openness with things never being completely fixed or finished!

When listening to Lucky Dragons I always get a feeling that you’re trying to create a utopian vision in the music, there is a real pleasant optimism about it, which I wouldn’t call naivety but maybe it comes close to that. Would you agree?

LUKE FISCHBECK: I’m not quite sure what I am agreeing with, that our attempts are naive, or that we’re trying to create a pleasantly optimistic utopia? or both? Maybe we are, on the one hand, imagining some future possibilities, and then also drawing attention to the very temporary heterotopias of the present, places where many different ideas of what is good can co-exist and there ‘d be no need to collapse things into a single vision.

So what would the ideal future of Lucky Dragons be?

LUKE FISCHBECK: The goal remains, at least, to keep things suspended in an open constellation of possibilities for as long as possible and even when we get to that imagined future place, we’ll still feel the same way!

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Listen to Lucky Dragons here

Certainly the loudest band from London, possibly the best live band in London, definitely one of the best bands to come out of our music scene in 2009; Loverman are a force, a compulsion, an earthy Bukowski steak belch. Kicking and screaming from the bowls of a snuff porn dungeon Loverman’s music hauls you into a nightmarish tornado of feedback, deep sludge riffs and crooning melodies. Their upcoming mini album was recorded in California with Atticus Ross and Joe Baresi who have produced Nine Inch Nails, Kyuss, The Melvins, The Jesus Lizard and Queens Of The Stone Age - the sort of bands you can file Loverman’s record next to in your desert rock library.

They have given us a free track they recorded and released on Young and Lost Records early this year.

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN, DOWNLOAD AND READ FULL POST]

Off Modern regulars and good friends COCADISCO have a really special party coming up this week at our own Corsica Studios. Its on Friday the 24th and Vitalic, Mark Moore, The Horrors and Louis Enchante are all dj’ing, its bound to be special and we’ll definitely be down there having a great time. To warm you up for this, Rodaidh of Cocadisco has done a little mix for you to listen to and download.

[CLICK TO LISTEN TO MIX + VIEW WHOLE POST]

Fiction are one of our new favourite bands, we like them so much we’re putting them on at this months Off Modern. Its all very intricately constructed around beating drums and slowly climaxing guitar lines, there are aspects of Josef K and Orange Juice to it but the whole thing is carried off with a Dada-esque awareness of the playful joy/absurdity of music that really brings it above the sum of its parts. Which is a compliment. Here are three mp3s for you to listen too.

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Misha Hering, one half of old-school hip-hop dj duo and Off Modern regulars So Official, has released some of the most incredible, dark, ambient and rich sounding shoegaze I’ve heard in a while under the name Among The Bones and we have two full tracks for you to listen too.

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