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True
Colour of Blood - The Significance of Secrecy COLLAGE Various
Artists - Memento Soundtrack Still In Hollywood: The Return of Concrete Blonde SHORTCUTS This month’s installment of shortcuts is extremely danceable! Just the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose. These three darlings provide booty-shaking fare! I’ve got a lovely ep by synthpop artist Leiahdorus, an ep by a fabulous Brighton, U.K.-based group called Swarf, and the NY-loft-party QED, all discs guaranteed to raise your heart-rate! Read on, brave consumers! This always happens to me: I pick up a single or EP from A Different Drum (www.adifferentdrum.com) and the very next week or so the full-length album by the artist comes out! Such is the case when I bought Leiahdorus’ Wake EP; the full album Ashes, Ashes is now available. Leiahdorus is Jason Smith, produced (excellently) by Joey Belville of The Echoing Green. Leiahdorus is, quite simply, synthpop in the truest sense: music made with synthesizers and samples, and undeniably pop! Also, its undeniably beautiful! “Wake” is a gorgeous bittersweet love song. It starts with neo-classical piano sounds, and the samples at the beginning and end sound like mournful uillean pipes. This tune grabs the heartstrings and holds them hostage for a hefty ransom. (I’ve probably listened to it 50 times this week, yeesh!) Jason’s vocals are clear and soaring and emotional. The song tackles that ever-present sense of “what might have been”, and the chorus pipes in with the following lyrics (with variations): “Outside no sun shining/outside no one playing our song/ In the distance a wind is breathing/ In the distance I am screaming your name/ And every dream I have of you/ It’s so pur, it’s so pure/And every tear I shed for you/ It’s so clear, it’s crystal clear”. Pretty! The other original track on the disc, “Eventually”, again has that soft piano at the start that becomes the foundation of the song. Then the extremely-danceable beats start up and take us into another angsty lovesong with a sweet melody. There are three remixes of “Wake” on this EP, and each A Different Drum-affiliated remixer treats the song differently (Ah, that incestuous synthpop family! Not that I’m complaining grant you, all the entwining has extremely sexy results). System 22’s “Waking the Club” mix adds their harder dance beats and dark edge to make this a haunting, and more disturbing, club track than the original. The “Sleepless Mix” by Count to Infinity speeds up the original, but in a much cheerier fashion than System 22. The vocals are more distorted also, and the track moves through the mind (and body) like a train, with lilting samples. I think this is my favorite dance mix, although the powerfully sweet original album version of “Wake” is my favorite, hands down. The “Toss and Turn” mix by Wave In Head keeps the original tempo and feel of the song, but stripping it down a bit to make the finished product a less-lush, more minimal version of the original --- rather like a Wave In Head song, in fact. I have to say that I find this bare-bones remix to be extremely moving in an indefinable way. There is a very “New Romantic” feel to this album, and damn, but it feels good.
Rating: Deliriously-gorgeous synthpop for the lovelorn Stars:
Recommended if you Like: The Echoing Green, Big Country, A Flock of Seagulls, Wave In Head, Iris Track Listing: 1.Wake Website: www.adifferentdrum.com and www.mp3.com/leiahdorus
Through marvellous chance and the fateful way in which my music and I find each other, I have discovered a great little British label called Wasp Factory Records! They distribute this neato little outfit called Swarf. Swarf’s Fall EP is a delightful bit of ebm-goodness with gorgeous female vocals and enough hooks to hang one’s dresses upon. According to Wasp Factory’s press release, Swarf consists of two DJ’s of a long-running alternative club night. They obviously know what they’re doing, not only in knowing good music when they hear it but being able to turn around and produce and create it! This disc is definitely getting handed to my favorite DJ here at my first opportunity. Their name evidently comes from this: The curly strips of metal waste you get from a lathe - small, cute and shiny, but still hard as nails and they`ll give you a nasty cut if you`re not careful. What an apt description! Its dark. Its melodic. Its shiny. The EP consists of the orgiginal tracks “Fall”, “Vision”, and “Sorrow”. “Fall” is the most club-ready track in its original state, with pulsing beats melodic tune running through them. And those aforementioned gorgeous vocals. “We Fall/for fear of flying/we fall/for love of life/We fall, we fall/We fail to see it all”. Swarf proves they’re no lyrical slouches either. “Vision” is a bit more stately and measured in its danciness, but still lovely. “Sorrow” slows it down a bit more and adds a little more instrumentation, such as piano. Through all three the electronics are tight and heady. The disc also contains four remixes of “Fall” by four other Wasp Factory artists. The Chaosphere remix by Chaosphere is a techno-hypnotic dance masterpiece. It just keeps moving, alternating tempos a little to good effect. The “Falls Apart” mix by Exitboy picks the original apart a bit more, but puts it back together with a faster tempo and bigger beats, for the obligate stompers. The “Dirty Little Fucker” mix by Tarantella Serpentine is amazing. It starts with alternating samples of Liz’s vocals and distorts them, then takes off with darker, heavier noise woven in with the beats. Heady stuff! Its sexy as hell and my favorite remix. Freudstein provides the fourth remix. I’m having difficulty describing this one, other than to say that its “nice”. I like the downtempo (well, downtempo compared to the other remixes) feel that still has a nice groove, the distortional samples. Hmmm. It’s more melodic, more fluid, than the other remixes. Not only has this disc excited me about the music of Swarf, it has interested me in the other talent this label has to offer. I’m practically frothing at the mouth. Cheers mates!
Rating: Soulful expressive elektro-dance gorgeousness Stars:
Recommended if you Like: The Azoic, Delerium, VNV Nation, Covenant, The Cure Track Listing: 1.
Fall Website: www.swarf.org.uk or www.wasp-factory.com
If you’re looking for intelligent, well-crafted music for your party or club, look no further! QED fits that description only too well. Claiming Delerium, Underworld, Deep Forest, and Depeche Mode among their influences, QED serves up a nice mix of beats, melody and energetic vocals. QED is NY-based and evidently is the resident act for the Immersion party, which started in a private loft and since moved to Saci. If only I were in the area! QED is composed of Valentin, who writes, arranges, and produces the music as well as playing instruments and supplying vocals, and Kristine Hendricks, a multi-faceted, classically-trained vocalist who has done a stint at the Appollo Theater. Enough exposition of who and where, let’s get into the what! QED has motivational dance music down to a science, almost, although I’m not implying that they’re formulaic. The beats alternate tempos, giving you a moment to breathe before taking it back up a level. Kristine’s vocals are clear and fluid. One of my “dance-music” tests is to put a track on a tape for the exercise classes I teach, to see how it fares in the general populace. They might not know much about music, but they know what they like! QED’s slick dance track “Hardly a Day (Part 2)” passed the test for sheer inspirational power!
My favorite track on this EP is the Delerium-like “Vampyre”. It has a lovely “Prelude” consisting of haunting soft piano melodies, then goes into the main song. “Vampyre” is founded on steady beats, with tight electronics and Kristine’s vocals soaring in octaves over the top of the entire thing. In the middle Valentin slows it down and adds samples of chant that give the song that evil-holy feel so popularized by Enigma. There are two mixes of the track entitled “So It Is”, with Valentin and Kristine alternating the vocals. Both are notably good. They flow well with the dynamic that has been set up. I must admit to finding the song “Set The World on Fire” a bit soul-less. Its well-crafted dance-pop, but reminds me too much of Daft Punk’s “One More Time”. “Swing the Ball” also leaves me rather cold --- it has all the right elements, but is missing something, somehow. It has beats, distorted vocals, female vocal riffs hovering over the foundation. All that goes along just fine, and then it returns to a chorus that I find, well, a bit banal. I feel as though the musical complexity that is set up so well previously in the song (and in the entire album), is thrown right out the window to accommodate a chorus that reminds me of my least-favorite 80s-rock songs. Even so, QED has begun to be a presence in the dance-scene, and I’m looking forward to hearing where they go from here.
Rating: Well-crafted dance-pop Stars:
Recommended if you Like: Enigma, Delerium, Daft Punk, Aqua Track Listing: 1.
Hardly A Day (Part 2) Website: www.mxworks.com/qed
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