Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Making It Quick

Right, so it is my birthday and as this will be the last year of my twenties, so forgive me if I make this one quick I have a lot of 'lost' time to make up. Basically today I've simply chosen just to highlight things that I like.


First off, my favourite scandinavian psychedelic balearic band Studio have put out yet another stellar reworking this time of Rubies (nope, I've never heard of them either) and this is so good that when you listen to it you can practically feel the sand between your toes as the boys take you on a slow laconic melodious guitar-flecked journey through a truly breath-taking sonic template as categorized on their previous remixes for Love Is All, Kylie Minogue, A Mountain of One and on their West Coast album (send it to me please, Paul), basically everything they have released has been sublime, utterly original and you should buy it all now. That'll be $5 please, Dan and Rasmus.

Rubies - The Keys - Studio remix


The second track for the day comes from LCD Soundsystem and it has been out for a while and I've played it to death but incredibly I'm still not tired of it, which is saying something as I tend to shelve records fairly quickly and move on. This was originally the b-side to the All My Friends 12" that came with the incredible Harvey mix and as good as that is, it is not a patch on the Freak Out, which has one of those grooves that will get a dancefloor moving. I'm not that enamored with Starry Eyes and as their is no differentiation between the two on the single you had to concentrate a bit harder than usual (not a whole lot in my case) as to when to mix it out and obviously I wasn't the only one who saw this as a bit of a hassle as they've just released a 12" with the two separated, handy that. I'm crap at genres seeing as I hardly stick to one but I'd probably describe this as post-punk disco-not-disco if I was pushed to but I'm not and that is a bit naff in all truth.

LCD Soundsystem - Freak Out/Starry Eyes


I'm not certain why this one has been slept on by the balearic/re-edit axis of doom, maybe because it came out on Kompakt or wasn't given a glowing endorsement by the Lowife mob or Prins Thomas on DJ History but Justus Köhncke has produced yet another superb late-night disco workout with more than a touch of the Moroders to it. This is a record that could quite easily be embraced by the disco nerds and the too cool for school prophets of minimalism and has by quite a large number of the latter if charts are to be believed. If this takes your fancy then don't just stop here, search out/buy his other essential records 2 after 909 and Elan. He's just about to release another album and I'll be the first to admit that he can be a little bit hit and miss but when he hits it is dy-no-mite.

Justus Köhncke - Parage

Taking a bit of a detour here but recently I've come across a publisher called Victionary who put out incredible books that are both aesthetically pleasing and absolutely cutting-edge. Their editing process is great and they hardly ever have publish a page that isn't pure candy for the eye. Hopefully in a few years when I hopefully fulfill one of my ambitions by publishing a book or two that I have been working on based on my travels. If it turns out even half as good as any of the Victionary publications then I'll be satisfied. Here are a few images from my two favourite books, Illustration Play and Type Addicted.

Illustration Play







Type Addicted







You can buy the books from here.

For my birthday I always buy myself something and this year I bought myself $137 of records and a Brixton Castor.



Right, I'm off to hang out with the wife, have a great day.

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