You’ve been missing us right? Well not long to go till we start back up, to keep you sweet though, here’s a mix by Nasty McQuaid. You can download it here.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Recently I’ve spent a considerable amount of my time driving around in Dave Ashby’s van. Last friday we moved a photocopier into the OM HQ and the the week before he helped me move house. Dave is a pretty great guy, and he plays in a fantastic band called Rum Shebeen. They’vre just about to put out a double A side of Tropical / Old Punk and they are playing all over London in the next month, try and see them if you can.

So, in the post below, I said if you were lucky you might get to hear some more live recordings from last year’s Off Moderns. Well as it happens every housewife’s favourite, Nasty McQuaid, is putting on Kalakuta at the Big Chill House in King’s Cross this Thursday, which is a perfect excuse for us to post them performing the excellent Fela Kuti jam, Water No Get Enemy, at Off Modern 14. They were excellent then, they’ll be excellent this Thursday too, so its definately worth heading down to check them out again.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hello everyone, you may remember Fair Ohs, they played for us back in April, they are pretty amazing. A while back they release a 7″ on Sad All Day Records, you can buy it here, you probably should, there aren’t many copies left. Its a double A side, of Eden Rock and a cover of Brigitte Bardot’s La Madrague (thus the shameless picture of Brigitte in the bath). We’ve also got a live recording of Fair Ohs performing Almost Island at Off Modern for you to listen too, it’s also incredible. We’ve got a lot more live recordings tucked away, if you’re lucky we’ll post them up during the summer.

Eden Rock by fairohs

La Madrague by fairohs

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Almost Island by Fair Ohs [Live At Off Modern 14]

These kinds of articles, I feel, should have the type of beginning that is often referred to as being a ‘Damascus moment’; this is the epiphany, the revelation, the shining light of realisation; won the road to Damascus St. Paul was struck down, saw Jesus, and converted to Christianity. The Damascus moment in music is the instant when listening to something new you experience the secular epiphany of pop music; this is the time when your friend made you a tape of Bleach by Nirvana when you were both twelve and busy discovering both weed and skateboarding, or it is finding your Dad’s old Rolling Stones records in the attic, it is taking a gamble on a weird German sounding band called Kraftwerk and hearing a completely different world in it. Except I don’t ever really remember the first time I heard a song from the Stax label. I imagine it was probably Otis Redding’s ‘Sitting On The Dock Of My Bay’, with its famous whistling melodies, but I couldn’t say when the first time I heard it was, or that a great Damascus moment occurred when I did, and I certainly didn’t know that it was on Stax. So instead I want to focus on a different type of Damascus moment, a moment inside the history of Black American Music that is Stax itself. This is the secular epiphany of black popular music as a vehicle for radical, social change.

Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton formed Stax records in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957 as Satellite Records, and their first release being the Veltones’ ‘Fool In Love’, in 1960 they met Rufus Thomas whilst promoting the Veltones single and moved into a disused cinema on McElmore Avenue in South Memphis, and turned it into a recording studio. The two white record label heads, Stewart and Axton found themselves in a poor, predominately black neighbourhood, during a time of mass civil unrest in America. Black American music traces itself from slave history with the Christianisation of the work song and then the blues, jazz, soul and gospel, through to the late twentieth century and Grandmaster Flash, NWA, Public Enemy and the rise of hip-hop.

With its turn to Christianity African-American music developed the gospel style, and to a certain extent the blues, both indicative of the struggle of a people for emancipation and respect. There is something eternal about the wandering bluesman, a shadow musician, with people like Skip James who became a pastor after retiring from music in 30s there is a link between the suffering and the hope of everlasting life. African-American music is impossible to talk about without discussing the anthropological and folk aspects of it, the nature of the people recording it forces a political dialogue upon it, whether its one of salvation through hymn, or a record of the conflict between survival and purity of religion, (Skip James was a bootlegger, musician and labourer), and later in the likes of Public Enemy, an all consuming anger and violence at the status quo, the record industry and society.
But Stax is a watershed moment in the history of African-American music, to continue talking of Christian imagery and conversion it is a negation of the influence of Christianity on black music, because the brand of Soul music espoused and released by Stax-Volt is a secularisation of the gospel tradition. With the Voting Act of 1965, and the broader civil rights movement of the 1960s, many previously disenfranchised black American’s were given the right to vote in elections, allowing them to formally enter the wider American society, even if there was still much resistance to desegregation in the south. But with their formal entrance to American society and culture the African-American population is open to inclusion in the pantheon of American popular music.
Memphis has a long history of producing these mortal gods of American music, home of Sun Records, who in the 50s gave Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis their breaks in the music industry, these artists’ mixture of African and American musical styles became Rock And Roll and dominated the musical landscape of the later 20th Century. Stax was founded by white businessman Jim Stewart, and along with Motown, took essentially black musical forms and sold them to white audiences as well the African-American population. The style of rhythm and blues they created maintained the call and response vocality and charisma of the gospel singers and developed them into mutually beneficial overlaid harmonies. This is the secular gospel of pop music, instead of the sufferings and tribulations of faith we have all the dramas of Love and Politics; Stax’s artists haven’t got a political message in their music because the whole enterprise is political on a deeper level, in songs like ‘Respect’ by Otis Redding and ‘Soul Man’ by Sam & Dave, black experiences in the south transfer political clashes into the tribulations of emotion in which feeling is shown to be universal. On ‘Cause I Love You’ by Carl & Rufus we have the first hint of the national ascendency of Stax Records, the first song to be recorded in their old converted cinema building. The building on McElmore Avenue still had the sloping floor of the auditorium that created an unusual, raw and dark acoustic sound that showed up Motown for its preppy pop polish. A young Booker T. Jones played baritone sax on the recording, before forming Booker T. and MGs who would become Stax’s house band playing on most recordings between 1961 and 67. Booker T. & The MGs defined the sound of Stax, all squelching horn hits and boozy bass sounds over soulful, multipart vocals, it is a pure emotional force of celebration of universal experience. Whilst Motown was a predominately Black operation, a factory line calling themselves the Corporation, Stax was racially integrated, with Booker T. & The Mgs having two white members, and also releasing odd singles by white artists, like The Fleets’ ‘Please Return To Me’. The Mar-Keys who had Stax’s first national hit with ‘Last Night’ where also a white band, young kids into the sound of black Memphis rhythm and blues. Stax was a colourless enterprise in the midst of segregation, one of the few places in the American South where blacks and whites could freely mix on an equal level; that level being soul music. Stax was also a form of empowerment for black musicians, in the face of white recording artists using black forms of music to make vast sums of money Stax was reclaiming soul, rhythm and blues and funk for the people who originated the styles.

Otis Redding was the undoubted star of Stax, with a voice of pure emotion; he stumbled into Stax one afternoon in 1962 and convinced them to record him singing a version of ‘These Arms Are Mine’. His European tour of 1967 that culminated in a performance at Monterey Pop Festival broke him into the mainstream, backed by Booker T. & The Mgs, his performance wowed the white audience (the first time he had played to a large group of white people in his home country), but within six months he had died in a plane crash in Wisconsin. Three days before his death he recorded what I imagine was the first Stax record I heard, ‘Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay’, bringing us neatly full circle.

STAX TOP 7

OTIS REDDING – I CAN’T TURN YOU LOOSE
If you watched The Blues Brothers 50 times on VHS as a child you’ll probably recognise this; it’s playing in the background of the scene where Jake and Elwood destroy the mall in the car chase. It’s a perfect example of everything soulful about Stax, and especially Otis’s voice, sounding as he does, absolutely wrecked by emotion. Booker T. & The MGs do fantastic work on the horn section, stabbing the song with a perfect foil for Otis’s vocals. For an even better version, check out the live recording from the Whiskey A Go Go show, which breaks down and builds up twice more, turning into a four minute epic, literally unable to turn the song loose.

THE MAR-KEYS – LAST NIGHT
Stax’s first chart hit, featuring members who’d go onto form Booker T. & The MGs, recorded in 1961 when Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper where only twenty, and an even younger Booker T. Jones at the age of seventeen on the keyboards. A stomping instrumental number that would define the early Stax sound, playing as they did on almost all Stax releases in the 60s.

SAM & DAVE – I THANK YOU
Sam & Dave were two struggling southern musicians until Atlantic picked them in 1965 and sent them to record at Stax in Memphis. I Thank You was Sam & Dave’s final single to be released on Stax and probably their finest moment, written by Isaac Hayes and Dave Porter it sold over a million copies and is a great swan-song to a label that catapulted them to stardom.

EDDIE FLOYD – KNOCK ON WOOD
Written by Floyd and Steve Cropper at the infamous Lorraine Motel (where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead in 1968), Otis Redding and Carla Thomas have recorded a version of this song, as has David Bowie, Wilson Pickett, Eric Clapton, Cher and Alton Ellis, which says it all, especially as no one comes close to the original version, its like thunder, lightning, the way you love me is frightening is the truly tumultuous love song that Motown could never do.

JEANNE & THE DARLINGS – HOW CAN YOU MISTREAT THE ONE YOU LOVE
Talking of Motown, this single from Jeanne & The Darlings does the smoothness of Motown, but blows it out of the water. Jeanne & The Darlings were the Stax backing singers and the quality of this shows how supremely talented everyone at Stax was.

RUFUS THOMAS – WALKING THE DOG
Epitomising the humour that runs through all of Thomas’ songs, Walking The Dog spent 14 weeks on the charts, peaking at number ten. Another Stax song that has been covered by pretty much everyone and never beaten, The Rolling Stones, The Everly Brothers, The Sonics, Dr. Feelgood, Aerosmith and John Cale have all tried, nothing comes close to Rufus’ gruff funky growl.

CARLA THOMAS – B-A-B-Y
Carla Thomas was Rufus’ daughter, and together they recorded ‘Cause I Love You’ in 1960, the song prompted the Stax deal with Atlantic Records. B-A-B-Y is her finest moment though, another Stax track that almost touches on the Motown sound, the smooth piano intro soon gives way the idiosyncratic Stax horn sound, improbably rich and pumped full of bass, all underpinned by Carla’s fantastic voice.

download stax top 7

This friday is the last Off Modern before our summer break (we’ll be back in October) and to get you in the mood for a bit of a latenightallactionartmusicparty at Corsica Studios The Boogaloo Crew have made a fantastic mix for you to listen to whilst drinking warm beers in your garden.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hello Everyone, we’ve got a deal for YOU from the lovely people at Corsica Studios, so don’t say we don’t treat you nice people. We are offering discounted £5 guestlist tickets to three events they are running next week, all you need to do is send an email to events@corsicastudios.com with which ever event you’d like to go to. All the details for all the shows are below.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Baba Yaga’s Hut presents

TRANS AM (US, Thrill Jockey)
w/ LAZER CRYSTAL (US, Thrill Jockey)
w/ HIGAMOS HOGAMOS (UK, DC Recordings / All Time Low)

TRANS AM
http://www.myspace.com/transbandspace
Trans Am is a three-piece band that performs a mix of synthpop and rock music. Their work treads a fine line between spoof and homage, mainly centering on a cerebrally robotic, semi-danceable, minimalistic format, reminiscent of 1980s video game soundtrack music. They are known for constant touring cryptic album artwork, and continual thematic re-invention.

“Trans Am have been one of those super special bands which
those-wot-know have been cranking between Cut Copy and LCD Soundsystem
at house parties and on their blog mixes for longer than we care to
remember” (Drowned in Sound)

With Support From:

LAZER CRYSTAL
http://www.myspace.com/lazercrystal

HIGAMOS HOGAMOS
http://www.myspace.com/higamoshogamos

Château Flight and Prosumer Join Prins Thomas For Ekstravaganza #4

Following on from last month’s launch party for Prins Thomas’ critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Corsica Studios and Full Pupp come together once more to transform this small corner of South East London into a disco paradise.

With everyone from the NME and Timeout already hailing his eponymous debut as one of the best albums of 2010, Thomas returns triumphant to Elephant & Castle to spin one of his world famous body-moving sets of cosmic disco and Balearic beats.

Ekstravaganza 4 see’s Thomas joined by fellow Full Pupp artist and DJ, Blackbelt Andersen and, playing a rare live set, Parisian duo Château Flight whose blend of dark disco, house and techno has propelled them into the premier league of French house producers.

Clubbers who pray in the direction of Berlin meanwhile will want to make a beeline for room 2 where Achim Brandenburg aka Prosumer will be playing a 4 hour set. Since his debut on Swayzak’s 240 Volt label in 2004, Achim has been one of Germany’s best DJ/producers with releases on labels like Playhouse, collaborations with Murat Tepeli and Sebo K, and his residency at the legendary Panorama Bar in Berlin.

Joining Achim in steaming up the back room will be London DJ trio, TOTHEBONE, who have been showcasing the best in house and techno at their own parties and nights such as Secret Sundaze and Sud Electronic since 2004.

And Faust, who really need little introduction..

I cant remember the last time I was more excited about a new release than the latest and supposedly final LCD Soundsystem record. For me, and for countless others, LCD auteur James Murphy is unique in his ability to merge modern dance music with modern rock and pop, fusing infectious beats with lyrics that pack a serious emotional wallop. He makes dance music that tugs at heartstrings, a rare and wonderful thing.

New LP This Is Happening plays as a homage, a tribute to classic pop songs. Murphy references Blur’s Parklife in the perfectly silly Drunk Girls, whilst All I Want is much in debted to surely one of the greatest pop tunes of all time, David Bowie’s “Heroes”. This being LCD’s final record, it feels as if Murphy is saluting and celebrating his influences, including his own back catalogue. This Is Happening is full of songs that build to ecstatic finales in true LCD fashion, simple repeated couplets about love and youth, designed to be sung along to as loud as possible, arms raised, packed in amongst a heady crowd of people doing exactly the same thing.

If this is to be his last, James Murphy is to be remembered and celebrated as one of the finest pop craftsmen of his generation.

for God’s sake, listen to the new record HERE

Among The Bones have just realised their debut EP, The Chosen Sons of Snakes, which is available to buy from here. And heaping more music on you, he has also compiled another excellent mixtape for you to download, lots of excellent black metal jams, you can download it for free simply by clicking here.

TRACKLISTING

1. Lithurgy - Renihilation
2. Krallice - Aridity
3. Taake - Nattestid ser Porten Vid I
4. Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult - Glance at the Horizon
5. Barghest - Nine
6. Cobalt - Two-Thumbed Fist
7. FARSOT - THematik Tod
8. Gris - Il etait une Foret…
9. Nachtmystium - Solitary Voyage (Re-Recorded Version)
10. Baroness - Ogeechee Hymnal
11. Flood - Atlantis
12. Salome - White Tides
13. Noothgrush - Dianoga
14. Asunder - Twilight Amanthine
15. The Ocean - The Beacon

Fervent Moon was set up in 2007 to promote and provide a resource of rare, unheard and great music to people. Every single day a new song is uploaded on their website and is available for download and to listen to, and for the past week we’ve been choosing the songs. So as that week draws to an end, we thought we’d supply you with all of our chosen songs in on handy file.

The tracks chosen for download were;

Joe Meek and the Blue Men - The Bublight
Sam Cooke - Ol’ Man River
Skip James - Jesus is a Mighty Good Leader
Otis Redding - Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag
Deep Sht - Sidetripping
W. John Ondolo - Tumshukuru Mungu
Among The Bones - Hark From The Tombs

And you can download it by clicking here.

Enjoy.

Hello Everyone,

We are pleased to announce the next Off Modern event will take place on the Friday the 9th of April, at The Alibi and will be completely and utterly free, all night long. It’s going to be called SCORE and will explore the relationship between film and music in a new, exciting way.

We will be presenting a selection of our favourite party djs, who will be providing the soundtrack to a plethora of cosmic cinematic classics projected throughout the venue on the night. Think moon landings accompanied by celebratory boogie; expansive blood-red Mars landscapes twinned with epic house anthems; neon blue phasers overlapping with Italo disco grooves; deep space explosions booming alongside booty bass.

- - - - - - - - -

The cinematic SCORE will be supplied by:

Nasty McQuaid (Off Modern)

Budgie (Tomorroww / Honest Jon’s)

Louis Enchante (Top Nice)

No Pain in Pop Djs

Among the Bones (Dj Set)

Peder Matthias (Kiss me Again)

You might remember that a while ago we did a post about a band called Among The Bones (myspace), which is our good friend Misha’s project. They are excellent; dark, droney shoegaze music that sounds like a hangover in heaven or something. SO he is finally getting round to putting out his debut EP, its called The Chosen Sons of Snakes and will be coming out on Clan Destine Records pretty soon. To celebrate this lovely bit of news (we’ve been waiting for this to drop for what seems like forever) Misha has made a mixtape which you can download here. Its pretty amazing.

track lisiting

1. Bethlehem - Tagebuch Einer Totgeburt
2. l’Acephale - Psalm Of Misery
3. Peste Noire - Dueil Angoisseus (Christine De Pisan, 1362-1431)
4. Behexen - Born In The Serpent Of The Abyss
5. Watain - Legions Of The Black Light
6. Wolfmangler - Dirge For A Viking Asshole
7. Ascend - V O G
8. Thou - Tyrant
9. Vertigo - Two Lives
10. Harvey Milk - What I Want
11. Neil Young - Danger Bird
12. Bruce Springsteen - Racing In The Street
13. Hawkwind - We Took The Wrong Steps Years Ago
14. Death In June - Kameradschaft
15. Gong - Master Builder
16. Earth - An Inquest Concerning Teeth

So, a month or so in club music has rushed on by since I last did the round up, and, woeful Haiti relief records aside, things are looking up.

In the world of Hip Hop it’s been all about big guns with Pharrell, Snoop and Rihanna all putting out interesting tracks-

Have It All, Pharrell’s track with everyone’s favourite jailbird Gucci Mane is, for my money, the best track from the Neptunes stable since ooohhhhhh, like 2002 or something. It’s a sugar sweet return to Frontin’ territory with lyrics that feel like they were carved on a school desk on a sunny day. At one point Pharrell and Gucci even start singing ‘Wheeee’ in the manner of 12 year olds riding a round-a-bout made of candy and goodness. To cap it, the beat has this magical little tic-tocking that puts me in mind of Oompa Loompa’s covering MJs ‘The Girl Is Mine’ whilst churning out Scrumpdiddlyumptious Bars, (without the funny voices and dwarfism, obviously). The other collabo between the two, Soldier, is back over on the rough side of things, being one of the rave bass grind outs that the Neptunes used to toss willy nilly onto erupting dance floors. Both great tracks.

Meanwhile Snoop’s getting plays with Check Yo Self –and whoops! He’s only gone and covered a remix of an Ice Cube song that itself uses the beat from Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’. Cripes! Is that the sound of hip hop munching upon it’s own bloated, face down, rat gnawed corpse? Or is this merely a knowing self referential jam-that-bangs? Jesus I don’t know. Personally I quite like it. The beat is a killer, and fairs fair, The Message came out in the Stone Age so no one’s ever heard it anyway. (I heard Pixie Lott describe Take That as ‘old skool’ the other day, Lord help us). Snoop still sounds good, and all in all this is alright. Maybe a touch irrelevant but, hey the man’s got a mansion to maintain.

You’ve already heard Rude Boy by RnB ‘singer’ Rihanna, (you may have even heard my sketchy jungle remix of it if you were at last months Off Modern…) and…. well, I always thought Rihanna was rubbish to be honest. I don’t care, Umbrella is OK. Just OK. Face it. Stick Crazy In Love and Umbrella in a tiny boxing ring surrounded by baying hood rats and who’s going to emerge the bloody, staggering victor? And don’t even get me started on the wailing dirge that is ‘Take A Bow’. However I think only the most cloth eared of haters could deny that this track is brilliant. It’s all the things I love about pop; it’s nonsensical, euphoric, sparse, repetitive, sleazy, and cat aids catchy. I love the steel drums married to Tiesto trance. I love the way that seeing as Rihanna can barely sing, the old trout just raps away, vaguely having a stab at a melody. I can’t help but think how bad this could have been in the hands of a grade A warbler (say, Mariah)—the whole production is more than emotive enough to require any vocal pyrotechnics.

And talking of suspect-singer-releasing-good-song-shocker, well didn’t Ellie Goulding do well out of Jakwob’s mix of Starry Eyed? Whilst Goulding is some kind of horse-jawed Home Counties Salome prancing around blogosphere flourishing the severed head of Music on a platter made of money and hate, Jakwob it would appear, isn’t. He tethered a warheads worth of sublow wub wub to the nag, drenched her vocals in reverb, gave it a load of ocean deep drops, and somehow came up from the shit fields smelling of daisies. Fair play. It seems that since then the remix work has been coming in for the lad thick and fast, so let’s see how long he can milk it for by producing essentially the same track again and again and again.

Other big dubstep releases came from Dub Police and new boys Erba Records.

The 5 track label sampler doing the rounds from Dub Police gives a fairly accurate overview of where the scene’s at, coupling, as it does, exciting forward looking club music with leaden tedious crap. Caspa has decided to represent with an immensely dull track that he quite possibly wanked out whilst catching a five-minute breather from killing troglodytes on World of Warcraft. Emalkay, who may be forever stuck in the shadow of ‘When I Look At You’, continues in similarly depressing vein and the whole affair was looking to be pretty desperate until The Others showed up with their big bag of zany rave riffs and – Jesus Christ – fresh approaches to the sound. Their track ‘Quantum Leap’ fizzes and leaps about whilst maintaining suitable levels of dubbed out menace and the requisite face pummelling go slow beats. From then on it’s all plain sailing, Subscape come up with a vile and insistent breakstep growler that sounds like a pitbull wolfing a cat made of Pentium chips, if the cat was singing through the mutt’s mouth whilst being eaten alive – and D1 come up with some sort of ace pinging futuristic dance music that takes the wood pigeon sounds of ‘Night’ and whacks them over some high speed house and bass.

The Erba release Gangsta Nuh Play came across as the soundtrack to dancehall don Mavado’s murder and subsequent descent into hell, dragged by Lucifer’s chattering child demons (if it helps, imagine Willy Lopez’s death in the fine Patrick Swayze classic Ghost.) It’s got all the swagger and terror of the finest the genre has to offer and Mavado’s speaker rattling, mournful baritone proves himself once more to have one the strongest voices in dubstep. The flipside has a somewhat jollier Afrikan Boy sampling UK funky track, which continued the blurring between funky and dub that has been so prominent over the last few months.

More funky came from Sony who produced the excellent and aptly titled Sugar Rush, a mix of old skool garage keys and vocals combined with the sound of a hundred drums being battered in a broadly rhythmical fashion. At some point in the track a Sunny D glugging hyperactive bassline splurges out all sweaty and grinning like a mug and it sounds like perhaps everything’s not going to be so bad after all.

Roska has also come up trumps with Time Stamp. I was listening to it whilst walking the dog last week and I came across quite an unsettling sight. A murder (which is a great collective noun eh, like a parliament of owls, or a pride of lions) of screeching crows had gathered together by one of the footpaths in London Fields. They were jabbering frantically at each other and tugging at something in the middle of the circle they had formed. As I got closer I could see that the thing they were obsessing over was a dead one of their own. One crow would grab the limp bird’s wing while another crow would grab at its tail feathers, pulling the corpse into weird and unpleasant shapes. The others would screech and cackle, and it seemed that some sort of judgement had been passed. After a few minutes of this a mongrel dog came bounding through their midst and snatched up the body in its jaws. The crows scattered to the sky. They circled and screamed, flapping the air black with feathers and noise. As they whirled up to the clouds the nervy synths and whip crack snares of ‘Time Stamp’ blasted into my ears and the jittery excitement of it all was quite special. Roska is great.

Unfortunately the song finished to be replaced by David Guetta & Kid Cudi which I honestly swear is only on my iPod for review purposes. Guetta, a man as French as rudeness and sheep burning, is on some kind of one man mission to besmirch the careers of hip hop’s biggest names with his generic abysmal euro cack. First up he sorted out Kelly Rowland and Akon, both massive arseholes in their own right (fond as I am of an Akon sing-along, he owns a fucking diamond mine therefore = evil). Now Dave’s moving onto more credible artists, recently gifting Kelis with the worst song she’s ever released, before turning to stroke his fudgy production fingers all over man of the moment Kid Cudi. There’s no place for this music anywhere. You already know what it sounds like. It could possibly be played to a club full of moneyed tone deaf inbreds, lurching to its ‘uplifting’ beat in between paying £30 for a tumbler of peasant spit and incompetently planning a coup of an Equatorial Guinea. So, big in Bungalow 8 I dare say. To give an alternative review of this track, here’s a comment from the youtube video:

“Stoner song, party song, get away from life song. Kick ass song”

So what do I know, eh?

And while I’m on the subject of dumb music for morons Don Diablo & Sidney Sampson have blessed us with Monster and Rise Up this month. Lest we forget, Don Diablo has a big Anarchy ‘A’ in his logo which shows that he’s a totally crazy guy. Sidney Sampson had the word ‘motherfucker’ featuring prominently in his last hit (‘Riverside’ for those of you to apathetic to keep up) suggesting that he too, is pretty darn crazy. No prizes for guessing what happened when these too scallywags got together, yep, hot diggedy, lock up your daughters because we are gonna go super ! mega ! bananas ! batshit ! CEEERAZY !! whoop !! whoop !! etc.

So bonkers, in fact, that this Dutch headbang house tagteam haven’t been able to contain their megalithic nonsense to just one piece. Instead we get one track that has some clown shouting ‘Rise Up NIGGERS’ (I know this may be off the point a bit, but whenever I think of Dutch people getting together to say nigger, I think of Steven Biko getting his head kicked in. Still, no reason why that should stop the party) until an Ed Banger jocking bass grinds out over the Prodigyesque – if that’s a word these days – drum break outs. The other track bangs along with a guy going ‘whoop’ in the background and some loud noises and stuff. If you want to feel a bit rebellious, then I can say that these truly are tunes that ‘your mother wouldn’t like’ (well, my mum wouldn’t anyway) but I suspect that might be because there a bit shit.

For a better representation of 4/4 music, it’s worth noting that DFA have come back guns blazing with 4 releases in as many weeks, all worth a listen. My favourite is Shit Robot – I Got A Feeling. As with all the other recent releases it’s a little bit disco, a little bit techno and a heaving great church full of house. After 4 punchy minutes of bleeps, bass lines and jack, the bloke from House Of House shows up with a sack full of 92 rave pianos he’s pinched from Detroit and starts emoting all over the place, working the track into what is generally considered epic territory. As with the greatest releases on DFA there’s an excellent sense of pacing at play—the stripped down opening half feels essential rather than noodling, and when the piano and vocals do kick in it’s less everything stepping up a notch, more everything falling into place.

I think there’s time for a mention of the SNES remix of Gorrilaz track Stylo. Put together by new boy Labyrinth, it’s a Mario bothering 8 bit epic with all the shimmering arpeggios, crunchy byte explosions and mushroom munching power up widges that this sort of carry on demands. Tinie Tempah shows up somewhere along the way sounding better than he did on his own chart assaulting single, Albarn’s voice sounds as haunting as ever over the video game hubbub and really, only the most curmudgeonly of fantasy Nintendo plumbers could hate this.

Oh, and while I remember, honourable mentions should go to both Hounds of Hate and Beaty Heart for having amazing tracks out, but seeing as everyone who reads this goes to Off Modern, you know that already. Still, good to have some of the most exciting music in England to be springing up from S. London eh… pip pip x

These reviews are edited from Nasty McQuaid’s weekly round ups which can be found at http://theransomnote.co.uk/

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 description of Beaty Heart and the sonic delights that you make with them?

Charlie
Fruity Roy Orbison with bangra beatz. In your face up your batty. We try and create an organic, percussive sound clash, with collage of samples and loops, whoops and tiny bum hoops.

O/M
That’s wonderful. You chaps certainly love ‘percussive sound clash’. Who’s the best at it? And how do you go about creating such complicated rhythmic duets?

Charlie
Probably James, he’s well tight. I think the patterns we play are often pretty simple. Its more the layering up of the simple patterns that helps create an interesting beat. We get a lot of inspiration from Afro Caribbean and latin drums, which often involves group percussion and several parts. Three of us were drummers originally so yeah, its pretty key to us.

O/M
Could you shed some light on your track COLA, and are there any more plans to record in the future?

Charlie
Well it was recorded in James’ bedroom with one microphone, kind of spur of the moment thing really. Its a relatively new track, and one that we thought would translate well when recorded. We plan to record some more tracks, hopefully one in the next week. Its gunna be well rammo.

O/M
Faves?

Charlie
I think we’re all a bit out of the loop (bar Lou Bega. Mumbo number five). How ever several guilty pleasures such as Lady Gaga, Akon, Girls Aloud, Alicia Keys etc. There is this really great band actually called “Select Funk”, they’re on Bebo, check em out.

O/M
Worsties?

Charlie
We unanimously like “SmashMouth”.

O/M
That’s it, so long

EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD OF ‘COLA’

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Beaty Heart play Off Modern 13 on March 4th at Corsica Studios, and are curating their own evening of music at the Camberwell Crypt on March 18th with music from themselves, New Yoga, and Jam City. Check out www.myspace.com/beatyheart for more info.

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]