Sebastian Tellier American Apparel Mix: Discobelle Contest

Sebastian Tellier's record label Record Makers have collaborated with retailer American Apparel for an exclusive three month pre-release of Tellier's album Sexuality. Limited edition versions of the Sexuality CD, LP and Dvine 7” and 12” single will be available in all North American American Apparel stores beginning July 22nd, 2008. Tellier also composed a MIX for Viva Radio, which is hosted at blog-juggernaut Discobelle. Discobelle contest rules can be viewed here.




Tracklist:

1. Sebastien Tellier – L’Amour et La Violence (Boys Noize Main version)
2. Michael Jackson – Rock With You
3. Sebastien Tellier – Roche
4. Justin Timberlake – Cry Me A River
5. Sebastien Tellier – Mauer
6. Babyshambles – Delivery
7. Sebastien Tellier – Look
8. Daft Punk – Veridis Quo
9. Marvin Gaye – Sexual Healing
10. Sebastien Tellier – Kilometer
11. Low Motion Disco – Things Are Gonna Get Easier (Sebastien Tellier Vocal Remix)

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And just in case you guys have been bored lately, we're excited to announce some tunes headed our way . . .

The Kills - Cheap & Cheerful - Sebastian Remix
Midnight Juggernauts - Into the Galaxy - Danger Remix
MGMT - Kids - Soulwax Remix

Stay tuned to yours faithfully, LET THERE BE NIGHT.

Button Your Pants

Justice seem to be up to something: they're immersing themselves in the fashion culture lately. After teaming up with Surface to Air to design the leather jackets and jeans that make their look so iconic, Justice have compiled a short mix for Dior Homme fashion show in Paris. In the mix, Justice supposedly drop one of their newest tracks: a so far unnamed, mysterious song that starts out with a Gothic-revival introduction of pianos similar to what worked so well with "Genesis" on †.

Justice - [as of yet untitled track for Dior fashion show '09]

I've also been digging this song the past few days. A remix of the Xinobi song "Day Off" by Anoorak. I can't tell you much about either of those names, so I'll let the song speak for itself.

Xinobi - Day Off (Anoorak remix)

Also, on a different note, last night I went to the Knockout to see a friend of a friend's band called The Muslims. It was a surprisingly good show: kind of a cross between Velvet Underground and Kings of Leon. My favorite song was "Beside Myself," with an amazing bass line that keeps the energy up for the shufflin of tha feets.

The Muslims - Beside Myself

The Definition of a Scorpion

Scorpion
Pronunciation: \ˈskor-pē-ən\
Fonction: nom
"C'est un ninja mort-vivant qui cherche à venger la mort de sa famille et de son clan de son assassin, Sub-Zero. Le Sub-Zero de Mortal Kombat I a péri de sa main. Lors de Mortal Kombat 4 alors qu'il s'apprête à tuer Sub-Zero, Quan Chi fait son apparition et lui révele qu'il est le réel meurtrier de son clan, alors que Scorpion se jette sur le sorcier, celui-ci le repousse à travers un portail vers le Netherrealm, mais Scorpion l'entraina dans sa chute. Dans Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Quan Chi parvient à s'échapper du royaume des morts, en comptant sur l'aide des deux Oni, Drahmin et Moloch qui devaient repousser Scorpion qui assaillait constamment le sorcier. Dans Mortal Kombat Deception, on apprend que Scorpion est le Champion des Dieux Anciens. Il a été envoyé pour empêcher Onaga (le Roi Dragon) de ressusciter, sans compter la participation de Shujinko qui avait été dupé par Onaga et qui croyait qu'en rassemblant les Kamidogus, il empêcherait la résurrection du Roi Dragon."

Santogold feat. Amanda Blank - I'm a Lady (Diplo remix)

Over the weekend I went to a warehouse party that supposedly featured Flosstradamus on the decks. But since I wasn't familiar with them, nor what they looked like, I was never sure if they actually were there or not. Anyway we had a gay ole time. Moral of the story: never turn down the chance to go to a warehouse party. Ever.

Flosstradamus - Overnight Star

Easy Does It

Cozy things like an old heater or covers from your childhood, your favorite spot on your pillow, they don't resemble very big highs like maybe riding in a Lamborghini does or a roller coaster or parachuting, what have you...they seem to beget a softness and an unconditional affection for your soul, whether you can attach those sentiments to those material things/memories.

Joakim - I Wish You Were Gone

Music possessing many of those sentiments sometimes both the highs and the coziness I mentioned, it can usually provide comfort and euphoria, and most especially satiate nostalgic leanings.

Justice - Sure You Will

Unfortunately, nostalgia can be opium for yours truly, and in that respect we should have to look forward to invent and reinvent in order to attach warmth and elation to other things, in this case, other music.

Wolf & Cub - One To The Other (Bumblebeez Remix)

The Sea-Bridge

Today, again, the question arises: why? Why does the sun come up on this feeble existence? What stops me from closing my eyes and falling into the void that covers my sleep? Perhaps one day, I imagine, memory will overtake me, and I will realize that my existence is nothing more than a thought. Perhaps it is already like that, it is only this troubling concept of the present that bothers me. I wish I could go back—I can in a way: through smells, photos and words I am taken back to the times when things were easier, predetermined, romantic and beautiful. But it is always so unsatisfactory. In the end I find myself here, alone or drunk. Last night I knew once again I would give in to alcohol—not by myself though, just in a social setting—and so I looked up at the beauty of the city within the night, at the building with the few individual hotel rooms lit up and saw that it was pleasing, so I thought to myself, “Remember this.” The thought confirmed something that is not new to me at all, that when I give in to alcohol, events begin to elude me. When I can’t remember what happened last night I am at a loss, I feel like: why even have fun if I can’t remember it in the end? But then maybe the nature of fun is just to be in the moment. So, bits and pieces of the night come back to me, but before it can fully return it is already the next night and I am attempting to grasp something of that night. What matter though? Perhaps the beauty of the building with lit rooms is fleeting, not meant to be remembered. Perhaps in reality it is nothing more than something I carry around with me. In fact I’m sure it is that (as Calvino calls it, the “sea-bridge” between the thing and my mind), that this appreciation of beauty is always with me, and it is released when I see certain things that are programmed to trigger the sensation. It doesn’t feel inside me as much as it is cast about the world though: the beauty of the night, the beauty of the buildings and the moon between them, the beauty of this woman. As though I am a vessel into which beauty is poured; otherwise, alone, I am emptiness.

Sonny J - Handsfree (If You Hold My Hand)

Santogold - L.E.S. Aristes (ooh ee remix)

Keedz

There are several hypothesis as to what is going on here. Recently, an "artist" by the name of Keedz popped up into the blog public. His only song "Stand on the Word" happens to use the same sample Justice used for their maybe not-so original song "D.A.N.C.E." I hope this is a future arch enemy that will play as the Justice Doppleganger. Keedz - Where's Phantom?


Keedz - Stand on the Word

Celestial Choir - Stand on the Word - Larry Levan Remix

Love is . . .

“What would be my, how shall I call it, spontaneous attitude toward the universe. It’s a very dark one. The first one, the first thesis would have been, a kind of total vanity. There is nothing, basically. I mean it quite literally, like, ultimately . . . ultimately there are just some fragments, some vanishing things. If you look at the universe, it’s one big void. But then how do things emerge? Here I feel a kind of spontaneous affinity with quantum physics, where, you know, the idea there is that [the] universe is a void, but a kind of a positively charged void, and then particular things appear when the balance of the void is disturbed. And I like this idea spontaneously very much, that, the fact that, its not just nothing, things are out there. It means something went terribly wrong, that what we call creation is a kind of a cosmic imbalance, cosmic catastrophe, that things exist by mistake. And I’m even ready to go to the end, and to claim that the only way to counteract it, is to assume the mistake, and go to the end, and we have a name for this; it’s called Love. Isn’t love precisely this kind of a cosmic imbalance. I was always disgusted with this notion of “I love the world, universal love.” I don’t like the world. I don’t know how . . . I’m basically somewhere in between “I hate the world” or “I’m indifferent towards it.” But the whole of reality . . . It’s just it; it’s stupid. It is out there. I don’t care about it. Love for me, is an extremely violent act. Love is not “I love you all.” Love means I pick out something, and I . . and it’s . . . and you know, it’s again this structure of imbalance. Even if this something is just a small detail, a fragile individual, a person, I say “I love you more than anything else.” In this quite formal sense, love is evil.”

Slavoj Žižek - "Žižek" - 2005


Sneaky Sound System - Kansas City - Lifelike Remix

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

Barring an assortment of late summer releases, which might well happen, it seems as if the heavyweights of electronica have taken a step back this year, leaving room for the ignominious to have a chance at the spotlight, blog or otherwise. Some have risen to the occasion while others have fallen by the wayside, in spite of their best intentions.

Blog backlash has come to those who are expected to perform and fail, which yours truly thinks is fantastic, yet others have won praise and accolades not entirely deserved which has prompted me to, in my heart of hearts, remember my sad prediction of this "new touch" regime coming to an end sooner than later, especially when the standardbearers who brought it so high now bring it to mediocrity.

Of course, trends die, not the music, and with that pessimistic outlook behind me, I do have a couple gems that have been ringin' in my ears non-stop.

The first one is a song by UK favorites The Feeling tittled Love It When You Call as remixed by Lo-Fi-Fnk. In typical Lo-Fi-Fnk fashion, it's a playful song, with blues-clues bass and electronic elements partaking with the samples of the original song, which itself swerves through an agonizing high-pitched guitar rhythm, with bubbly synths and slow drums, subtle voicecoders and lead vocalist Dan Gillespie Sells soft and poignant lyrics about mis-directed love. Peep it:

The Feeling - Love It When You Call (Lo-Fi-Fnk Remix)

The next one comes from an unlikely source, although when I really consider the people surrounding him, I've no idea why. It's a song called "Losing Sight" by Xinobi, who irked me by using a sample by Rockwell (if you have to ask, you don't deserve to read this blog) but has since redeemed himself in my eyes on the strength of this song. The chipmunk voice is somewhat annoying, but the song starts out tempered and then bombastic, so maybe Alvin, Simon and Theodore serve to lighten the mood. The end of this piece, somewhat similar to labelmate Moulinex's style, is my favorite part of the song, forgiving the drumkit for the droning synth in the background:

Xinobi - Losing Sight

Thanks to Discodust for the track.

That's it for today's post, a bit doomsdayish if you ask me, but not without fondness in recollection. If this is indeed the beginning of the end, then I plan to enjoi the band playing on as the Titanic sinks, and probably with a smile on my face.

The Last Summer Ever

"'To die for the Fatherland is the most beautiful fate'... The poilu, however, had a different view: 'The most beautiful fate is to live a long time and to be happy. Why lie?'"
--La Belle France

So we like Cut Copy a lot, but what can I say? These guys are hard workers. They inspire a work ethic in me. Because of them, I've been spending the past few days of the summer in the cafes studying for the GREs. Then, I look over next to me and a guy is studying for LSATs and I think to myself, sure, he's studious, but can he dance? Cut Copy's treatment of this Ladyhawke song is epic. It barely feels like a remix. See if you can get away with listening to this and not wanting to shuffle your feet.

Ladyhawke - Paris Is Burning (Cut Copy remix) (No longer available)

The ghosts convene when the temperatures rise. July 25th, Holy Ghost! and The Black Ghosts will play the Mighty in San Francisco. If you aren't spooked, I guarantee you'll be funked proper. July 26th, Hercules & Love Affair play at the Mezzanine. Could this possibly the greatest summer ever? Perhaps it will be our last.

The Black Ghosts - Full Moon

Midnight Juggernauts - Dystopia - Cut Copy Remix

Mass Hyperbole managed to get the Triple J rip before anyone else did, but as always, KidzbyColette managed to get an untainted 320 kpbs version first. It's a "nice" remix. I still believe the Boys Noize remix of "Lights and Music" is the best contending remix of an Australian artist this year. However, more may vouch for the native-on-native Midnight Juggernaut's Dystopia remix by Cut Copy. We'll have to wait until December, but until then, here's this number . . .

Midnight Juggernauts - Dystopia - Cut Copy Remix (No longer available)

BIRTHDAY

Associate writer Alehgzandurr Teplitskis turns 24 today. In other news, tommorrow will be hot, or cold. YOU DECIDE. No, but really. To say it in a similar way he did: it feels "awkward" wishing your friend happy birthday over the internet, but, well, Alex, Happy Birthday. By this power of suggestion, then, your day must be excellent. Do it big. I hope your night may be marry, or perhaps it already was. This time change business is heavy.




Onto music. The Presets are touring everywhere, and it is unfortunate I passed up on them when the swung by LA. "My People" live -- that must be something. Fellow Australian, Miami Horror used to put out better heat. First it was the excellent Stardust remix, then onto "Don't be on with Her." With no doubt, it can still be stated that Miami Horror is way underrated. Peeps need to represent, as Alex did on my birthday with the Grafton Primary Remix. Big cheers Alex.

The Presets - Talk Like That - Miami Horror Remix (No longer available)