Doesn't my car look angry? Its hatred is directed at me, and rightly so. Gulp.

As you can surmise from the photo above, I f**ked up my car on Tuesday. Nobody was hurt & the car still drives (though it's out of commission for now as I wait for an estimate), but it is most certainly not good. I just keep serving up winners, don't I? Can you guess how my week has gone?

I'm still listening to LCD Soundsystem almost exclusively ("On Repeat" is the hotness), though the latest Heavy compilation found its way into my mailbox a couple days ago. Despite featuring indie rock tracks like MP3 "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" by The Arcade Fire (mp3 courtesy of better Propaganda) & some lesser known hip-hop, Sumosonic 33 has a decidedly electro/dance vibe that fits in nicely with my LCD kick of late. Plus, I haven't done a Heavy-related post in a while, so why not today? Here goes...

MP3 Liquid Liquid - "Flextone (Brennan Green’s Deviant Funk Mix)"
Sumosonic 33 kicks off with this track by early 80's legends Liquid Liquid, from a new split 12" w/Liquid Liquid member Dennis Young coming out on Rush Hour recordings. James Murphy & Tim Goldsworthy of NYC's the DFA recorded new material w/Liquid Liquid ("Bellhead" appears on Compilation #2), and had this to say about working with their idols:

James: One of the biggest honours of my life. They’re friends of ours now, and they have the best sense of who they are than almost any band I’ve ever met. I generally don’t want to see a band that comes back after twenty years. It’s always depressing. But I couldn’t resist, and I went and saw them, and they just fucking tore the roof off. Far better than almost any new band. In fact, that’s the problem with new bands. They don’t have Liquid Liquid to compete with - they have the boring each other to compete with.

Tim: Working with a legend is absolutely terrifying. Because Liquid Liquid are one of the things we turn to when we’re listening to stuff, a root band. They still use the same instruments and sound exactly the same, and its difficult to produce because… they’re fucking Liquid Liquid! Am I gonna be the person to put an acid bassline on Liquid Liquid and be hated by thousands? I don’t think so. They have a pretty faultless back-catalogue, and they have mystery, because no-one really knows what they look like, or anything about the early gigs. They’re one of those perfect bands. So I felt like I had to go to a lot of therapy to cope with the weight of possibly being the man who destroys everybody’s perception of Liquid Liquid. But it’s a complete honour and I’m quite happy to die now.

My first introduction to Liquid Liquid was on the opening track ("Optimo") of the 2003 compilation New York Noise: Dance Music From The New York Underground 1978/1982. There is also a self-titled collection of material compiling three EP's & some live material available through Amazon.

MP3 The Juan Maclean - "I Robot"
This hypnotic instrumental track from The Juan Maclean is the last song on Sumosonic 33, and likewise also appears on the DFA's Compilation #2. The above Liquid Liquid quotes come from a track-by-track breakdown of that three disc set, with Tim & James also providing some odd-yet-interesting commentary on señor Maclean:

Tim: Juan is originally from the much-missed and totally underrated Six Finger Satellite, who Sub Pop should really put out a compilation of, ‘cos they were years ahead of everybody else. They were electronic, but tough and scary. Awesome stuff. His own stuff has elements of Kraftwerk and… I don’t know how to describe Juan really. He’s insane. One of the most intense people you’ll ever meet. You can ask people about Juan and they’ll says he’s extremely scary. Then you meet him, and he’s not. But then you get to know him and he is. There are many, many layers to Juan, and he’s very real.

James: ‘I was a big fan of Six Finger Satellite, then we were friends and I was their live sound mixer for years, and I helped them produce their last album. He’s just terrifying to be around. A very heavy character. He was a junkie for 13 years and I hated him at first. But that changed and its an honour to work with Juan. He’s a very genuine character, and an unusual talent… much more surreal than most people.’

bonus MP3 Black Leotard Front - "Casual Friday"
Seeing as how I'm already overloading on the DFA, and it's obviously Friday, I thought this was a reasonable track to repost. JRDN referred me to a City Pages review of Compilation #2 with some insightful thoughts on this fifteen minute song from staff writer Michaelangelo Matos:

After playing "Casual Friday," by Black Leotard Front (a.k.a. Murphy, Gonzalez, Russom, and Christian Holstad), three times in a row and stopping myself from making it four, I've decided it's the greatest 15-minute disco record of all time. (Runners up: Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby," Paperclip People's "Throw.") It hearkens back to the DFA's first great production, the Rapture's "House of Jealous Lovers"--only instead of giving an indie rock band the club-mix treatment, Murphy and Goldsworthy sound like they took hold of the West End Records house band circa 1981 and decided to art 'em up. There's an incomprehensible lyric about confronting somebody at the office; a pealing, glassy synth wriggle that announces each sonic shift; and the funkiest, sexiest, blessedly loosest pronunciation of the word bonjour on public record; not to mention an ending that pays explicit homage to Sleezy D's apocalyptic early acid-house hit, "I've Lost Control."

As of last nite, most of the Mix '04 tracks are now down. Hello, weekend.

This entry was posted by mr gilbert at 1/07/2005 12:30:00 PM.