AZARI & III INTO THE NIGHT

Wow. Argh. Waa! Yes: noises. Or loud noises. Depends on the situation.

As inexplicable as they are incomprehensible, these noises quite aptly describe how I feel when listening to this wondrous Azari & III (pronounced "Azari and Third") track. I'm listening to it right now for the four-hundred-and-fortieth time and I ain't one bit sick of it. In fact I can't stop listening to it and I'm quite worried. I'm anxious that I won't be able to stop, ever. It's just... can't resist... too... much... vibe...! Gah!

The song comes from their self-titled album of earlier this year and is called 'Into The Night'. It's a four to the floor, housey, beautiful, midnight-magic kind of 80s dance sonic psalm of the retro-future. It is absolutely full of energy and like ingesting a battery, if you were battery powered; I love it, everything from its sultry, soft toffee synths to its disco platform vocals.

Listen to it yourself, yo. So many vibe.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
• Here are Azari & III on SoundCloud
• Here they are on Facebook
• This is their official site
• Myspace...
• Follow Azari & III on Twitter
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

UNISON BROTHERS & SISTERS

If you want dark and innocuously modest music in the mornings, or actually at any time of day (it depends when you're reading this), then I'd get to know Unison if I were you. It's an old song but whatever.

The above song is an example of their pitch-black, echoing electronica, 'Brothers & Sisters'. Starting off pretty unassuming, but, like a night torn asunder by cicadas and frogs and crickets (if they stay awake at night), high-pitched noises and - eventually - the frenetic beat come in. The bass is a constantly transistory, in that it's not just one sustained note, but a series of low, wobbling notes - picture a jelly sitting on a power plate. Now imagine that this jelly is filled with, not mandarin segments, but faded polaroids of hoax ghosts and some piece of ancient, worn floorboard with some esoteric symbols carved into it.

What a picture. Sorry about that. But you know what I mean.

Like a mantra, the vocals come in with a 'Brothers and sisters something-something-something...' with their breathy echo - a wondrous female voice that sounds a bit like the singer from Portishead. The entrance of the clean-yet-slightly-distorted, repetitious guitar arpeggio is something special too, coming in after the night-noises stop and the kick is already strongly thumping. But from these humble origins the song builds into this crescendo, a wave of sound that constantly washes over you until its end, crashing with synth and fuzz and noise.

Darkly wonderful, wonderfully dark. Brilliant, too. Listen up. They call it 'death-gaze' and 'death-trance', but it's much more like deep-dark-electro-witch-house-ambient. Has a better ring to it.

The video is also great, you should watch it FULL SCREEN by clicking here.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
• Official site for Unison
• It's Unison on Myspace
• Unison's SoundCloud
• FOLLOW UNISON ON TWITTER
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO A SPECIES OUT OF CONTROL

Simian Mobile Disco don't often fail to please. Since 2007's massively sensitive to the electro zeitgeist Attack Decay Sustain Release, there hasn't been anything that's grabbed me. Well, there was 'Audacity of Huge' and '10000 Horses Can't Be Wrong' but I wasn't compelled to listen to the album, Temporary Pleasure, any more in depth than those two songs. Bad of me, yes probably.

But here we are. It's 2012. Five years since Simian Mobile Disco busted out onto the scene at the same time as other acts like Justice. And I think it's pretty fair to say they're back. Their new album, Unpatterns, is a pretty joyous aural treat. Give it a listen if you still have time for electro house in your busy life.

One song on the album with which I am particularly enamoured at the moment is 'A Species Out Of Control'. It's a fabulous track, something between a study of layering and tension, and an experiment with modulation and filters. They're certainly come a long way since 'Hustler'...



The way the song builds up is really great, starting as something that could be something as simple as a Flash game soundtrack, quickly becoming much, much bigger than that. There are many parts to this song, each succumbing to the weight of more distortion or a more complex beat as it progresses through its 5 minute 18 second duration.

Although I think the action stops a little soon and abruptly, like an rhubarb crumble that lacks crumble, the chilled ambience at the end of the song - along with the kick still kicking and the bassline still bassing fuzzily in the background - is a good way to end it all. Bravo and hooray.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
• Hey, Simian Mobile Disco are documented on Wikipedia!
• Hey, it's their official site!
• Check out more of their sharp sounds on SoundCloud
• They're also on Facebook
• Follow Simian Mobile Disco on Twitter!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE FLAMING LIPS FEAT KE$HA 2012 (YOU MUST BE UPGRADED)

Watch out everyone: it's everyone else, and The Flaming Lips. It's an interesting one, because they've teamed up with a lot of other artists for their new album, from Tame Impala and Yoko Ono, to Neon Indian and Nick Cave, there's a lot of talent in the mix. The album is called The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends and is out now.

An interesting song and the first single from the album is '2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)' featuring, bizarrely, Ke$ha. The song also features Biz Markie (not sure who he is so here's Wikipedia to help) and whoever the hell Hour Of The Time Majesty 12 is/are - strangely I found this whole spiel about Illuminati conspiracy fairytales when I searched for them/her/him/it: http://www.hourofthetime.com/majestyt.htm. Weird.

What is it with people and conspiracy theories?

...Anyway here is the song.



The Flaming Lips have always been a bit weird, or brave, whichever you like. With past songs like 'She Don't Like Jelly' and 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1', there's definitely something different in the makeup of this psychedelic rock band for however long they've been going, like well over 20 years.

Both the band and Ke$ha herself have never done anything that sounds even remotely like '2012'. The stop-start rhythm of the drums and the brazenly brash buzzing synth that sounds like a snippet of a HEALTH song or something. Not only does Ke$ha's breathy, decadently slack and sultry voice fit perfectly with the slapdash distortion of the song, it also sounds perfect when saying lines like "Put me under your acid spell / Cause I want my mind to be completely toast". It's sharp and strong. Could be Sleigh Bells (thought it was when I first heard it). But then again it couldn't really be many people and listening back, it definitely sounds like Ke$ha.

Then there's this great breakdown in the song from about 2 minutes in to about 3:30. Gentle and floaty, it's just this vast synth swirling around as Ke$ha's vocal becomes more and more reverberated. Then the song whirls round and shoryukens whoever's listening to it as the crazy sawing of the original synth and the original beat swing back in like a meteor on a string.

It's different, it's quirky, it's brave as hell, it's got Ke$ha in it. It's brilliant.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
• The Flaming Lips official site
• They're on Wikipedia!
• They are also on Facebook
• And Twitter

• Here's Ke$ha's official site
• Here's her Facebook page
• And here's her mofo'ing Twitter
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

GENTLEMEN DRIVERS FEROCE

Watch that. And tell me it's not cool.

Granted, the video isn't original (it's actually a short film called C'était un rendez-vous by Claude Lelouch), but it fits this brutal electro house song so very well. It might as well be the original. Like when Jimi Hendrix covered All Along The Watchtower and Bob Dylan said "yeah, ok, it's basically your song now" - same with this video. Gentlemen Drivers have done it better.

Hailing from Paris, this duo have described themselves as having an American imagination with a French sauce. And you can hear it. There's that big bold Parisian sound with a bit of American euphoric techno thrown into the mix. This particular song is quite old, but it's amazing. The dark, Dracula-at-the-organ-like synthesisers join us at the beginning of the journey and accompany us all the way to the end of the song. Soon the beat drops in, the kick perfect with one ounce hammering treble, 50 ounces full and meaty. The little drops where some modulating, low-attack synth chords are perfect too, providing a bit of respite from the atonal medley of fluttering synth that is always present.

Great song. Shame I got on it so late. Looking forward to hearing more.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
• They are on Facebook.
• They are also on Twitter.
• Here's their Myspace.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -