Soft Tones

CFCF is Mike Silver, highly respected in the blog world because of his vanguard leadership in redirecting contemporary electronic music towards softer creations, away from bangers that can obfuscate the value of solid producing skills and the melodies of contemporary electronic sounds. He's released a couple of scarce vinyls and EPs, but he's also remixed some stuff, recently HEALTH'S "Before Tigers". Check it out, let me know what you think.

CFCF - Monolith (alt)
HEALTH - Before Tigers (CFCF Remix) (alt)

Hypothetical Reality

The trailer for this album, funny as it sounds, was enough to get me st(r)oked about Julian Casablancas' first solo effort. Great as it looks in the preview, it's nice now to have a track to judge the album better before it's Oct. 20 release stateside (Oct. 19 UK). As it stands, it seems like what Nigel Godrich might have wanted to do with The Strokes for their second album, a what-if scenario that seems to be playing out in "11th Dimension" the first single for Casablancas' album Phrazes For The Young. I personally can't wait to have the full album in my hands/iPod.

Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension (alt)

Lucky Guess

I just knew that Empire of the Sun channeled Prince somewhat, just never thought it would ever be so apparent. Good for us.

Empire Of The Sun - Breakdown (alt)

Moving On

Songs to keep you fresh throughout the weekend. Enjoi!

Demon - Happy Therapy (Lifelike Remix) (alt)
Michael Huygen - Capturing Holograms (alt)
Matthew Dear - Send You Back (alt)
Fake Blood - Fix Your Accent (alt) REMOVED BY REQUEST

Perspective

I am trying to reconcile the fact that I like hipster music with the fact that I don't find myself to be much of a hipster. Hipster-ism, as a form of behavior, seems like another attempt at labeling a generation of people who happen to have as little or as much alike in common as any other group of people that have ever suffered a label. Yet it's pushed onto these groups in order to make it easy to pick them apart based on such mutable characteristics such as fashion, profession, and social diversions (and immutable ones like age group).
To be exact, I may have fallen within the trappings of the label, for I agree with the descriptions of those who find that there is much to loathe from the hipsters. This particular article set me off in the wrong way about hispterism. It is an article that always considers the consequences of the society (the hipsters themselves) and never the society itself. The Hipster generation is a generation of young people that demonstrates apathy to everything and stands for nothing because it is a generation of shutouts that suffers from a lack of opportunities hence a general disdain for the social structure. However, the hipster is born of the ideas of the previous generation that their hardwork would allow the next generation to reap the benefits and move up the social ladder. It's not only a generation of malcontents who face reality, but a generation of brokenhearted dreamers who were told that they could be anything if they just worked hard enough. If one also adds to that recipe that all hispters have been bombarded by consumerism in order to build a social identity, then you more or less encounter with the reality that is the hipster. Thus the tongue in cheek humor, the constant ironies and the skinny jean culture. The fact that it's a culture speaks more to the shortcomings of the society than of the group itself.

That being said, fitting in is fitting in. Everyone tries to fit in, no one is exempt from that. Given those barometers I cannot say that I'm not a hipster, not only because I match the criteria above but because I associate with said culture (cue "Hipsters Are My Friends" for great shirt idea). As to what that means for the music on this blog, be sure that hipsters do listen to this music, some for the sake of feeling cool, others because they like it. I fit in with the latter. I don't dedicate my free time to this blog in order to feel or look cool, but because I like music, I like the music I post and I'm pretty sure that if you read this blog, you like it too.

This entire post now comes full circle to the origins of what made me think to write it. I came across a post about how great Phoenix was live, how awesome they're music is and how said author "FEELS the music" instead of just going to a show where you like the music and the band plays exactly like the album or is noticeably less talented than the album demonstrated, so forth and so on....all points taken, I probably agree with him. It still doesn't sit well with me, though, that said author takes Phoenix to be the end all and be all of music, that it starts and ends with them, as if they hadn't been around for a long time, as if they hadn't made music that was almost as phenomenal...basically, the post reeked of bandwagonism. That irks me. What's worse is that it irks me that it irks me. I write on a blog to get people to LIKE that sort of music, so for me to accuse somebody of liking it too much is not only hypocritical, but self-defeating. In the end, I should be happy that people like the music, not only for the listener but for the artists, in this particular case very deserving of the spotlight, suspicious as I might be that it ruins the music later on. Oh well, I'll have to live with the paranoia, and to show you no hard feelings, here's the latest hipster nugget, a cover of Phoenix's song "Rome" by Devendra Banhart.

Phoenix - Rome (Neighbors with Devendra Banhart) (alt)

P.S. Sorry for the babbling, I hope it made sense and I promise it won't happen often.

BONUS EDIT:

Phoenix - Love Like A Sunset (Animal Collective Remix - Deakin's Jam) (alt) via

Prior-ity

These guys are pretty good, Priors. I'm a fan and I hope you will be too. These are two songs that have been rated pretty highly by a lot of people. Methinks they should build off that success and go off, like Aeroplane or something.

Priors - What You Need (Extended Version) (alt)
Priors - Into The Fight (alt)

Fight The Power

....but I can't. I'm sorry, I should be more original and provide other stuff and not just Boys Noize leaks, promos, demos, mixes.... For better or for worse, we all know that this album is gonna be big. Whether it's good or not (it will be), the amount of people talking about it, scrutinizing it, repping it for life like their hipsterdom is at stake, etc. is gonna be enormous (true as well). I figure we might start the conversation by giving you a song off of the new album, Power, out in October (Sept. 28th digitally). Enjoi it and purchase the album when it comes out!

Boys Noize - Rozz Box (alt) via

I Was Ready For That Jelly!

I'm glad this song came out, it's a great follow-up to my previous post on the man. I'm happy to see him back remixing things, and I hope we'll get some original work thrown in somewhere, sometime. Also weird is that Beyonce is invading my music week more than usual, oh well, can't help that one, she's huge. Like, Rihanna huge.

Beyonce - Broken-Hearted Girl (Alan Braxe Dub) (alt)

Fabulous Mixes By Fabulous Mixers

The first one, because it's The Twelves, a group I saw a couple weekends back. They always deliver good mixes, and in this case, it's no different. I imagine this mix is a precursor to their upcoming EP, too bad it won't be a full length, but I'm sure the quality will be so good, we won't mind.

The Twelves - The Twelfth Hour

The second mix is delivered by DJ of DJs, Erol Alkan, who stopped by BBC Radio 6 and dropped some new tracks, some fresh ones and some hyped ones. However you might feel about electronic music, Erol has always been on top of his game in delivering variety and in his mixes.

Erol Alkan BBC Radio 6 Mix 9/19/2009 via

P.S. I'm pretty sure, given the tracklist, that The Twelves mix is actually the mix used for their liveshow. Tracklists in the comments section.

Useful Inventions

Sometimes, not having all the information can be substituted by having good intuition. That being said, I had an inkling that Midnight Juggernauts were probably very quiet because they were in their studio preparing new material. Sure enough, the boys from Australia have just indicated as much by releasing a single onto the web belonging to their upcoming second full length.

Midnight Juggernauts - This New Technology (alt)

Release of the single on iTunes on Oct. 9th with remixes from The Emperor Machine, Weird Tapes and Nile Delta.