diskJokke: Seriously

You’d think a Norweigan would know as much about Disco as a Latino might know about Oslo. And you’d be wrong – and late. In this case, thank Thor and Guadalupe, the Viking in question is diskJokke and the spic scribe is me. Got this from the Chicago-based publicist for Modeselektor, and after a few rounds of e/mail-box drama, I finally got my mitts on the goods. And it was well worth the wait and the tease. diskJokke is Joachim Dyrdahl, and apparently he’s been drinking from the same icy waters as Jori Hulkonnen, Rune Lindbaek, Royksopp, Annie, Prins Thomas, and Lindstrom. They all seem to be wayward classically-trained buskers transformed by “one night at the disco on the outskirts” of their internal ‘Frisco. Joachim is no exception. His fluid, retro-futurist, abstract Italo-disco is quirky, funky, sly, snappy and guaranteed to make you shake your booty well past your bedtime, on every side of the international dateline. It’s like dropping acid in Amsterdam and waking up in Miami with glitter in your G-string and being so mesmerized by the sparkle that you could care less how you or it got there. If you follow his Myspace friends links for a few clicks, soon enough you arrive at Danny Wang – and that should be blessing enough for any disco malcontent. diskJokke’s debut, coyly titled Staying In, drops early 2008, but you can sample tracks like Some Signs are Good at eMusic now.

Deep Beat Diving

Sounding like Massive Attack and Zero 7 is great if you’re MA or Z7; it’s trickier business if you’re another band, like Morcheeba who has suffered such comparisons since their inception during last century’s shoegazing heyday. Despite this and the departure of charismatic lead singer Skye Edwards, they persist. DIVE DEEP, their latest release overflows with swampy grooves, buttery vocals, tender strummings and immaculate production values. The safe, classic touch may draw instant comparisons to fellow internationalist chill-meisters like Air, but Morcheeba’s stamina and integrative finesse have always been a redeeming part of their sonic allure. The parts may sound familiar, but the end product holds its own. Morcheeba goes searching for substance in style and comes up with a charming gem for early 2008. As the opening track emplores, “Enjoy the Ride”.

Papis Chulos & A Caribou, Oh My!

You are here: Earplug Home > Issue #102

Feature
August 30, 2007

Papis Chulos
Modeselektor go from mama’s boys to proud papas

Modeselektor’s down ‘n dirty techno takes no prisoners. The duo’s live shows are bombastic assaults on the senses that leave no genre unturned — crunk, dub, and electro all get worked into the mix with equal abandon. Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary have been kicking around since 1996, but the one-two punch of their 2007 Boogy Bytes Vol. 3 mix and this September’s full-length, Happy Birthday! — both for their longtime home Bpitch Control — have set the world’s dance floors atwitter with sweaty glee. Earplug’s Jorge Hernandez rang up Szary to talk shop, babies, and bingo while Bronsert puttered and muttered around in their Berlin home studio.

Earplug: This is a new studio?

Sebastian Szary: We left the studio one year ago because the house was under reconstruction. During the production for Happy Birthday!, we did several tracks at Gernot and his girlfriend’s home. Now she’s pregnant, my girlfriend’s pregnant. It was all quite a production.

EP: When are the babies due?

SS: Mine’s coming first, in October; Gernot’s is due in December. This is the first time. I don’t know what will happen then. This is a new experience.

EP: A lot of club kids are having babies now. What’s going on?

SS: That’s the reason we called the album Happy Birthday! We had a lot of different names for it. We were going to call it 700 Years of Modeselektor, Name Dropping Volume 1.

EP: Are you guys going to take some time off?

SS: No, the babies are coming during tour stops. I think it’s a never-ending tour. The last tour we played for a year and a half, closing on New Year’s in Glasgow.

EP: Are you coming to the States?

SS: Of course. Maybe spring next year. Our first show in the US was in Missoula, MO, last year. Can you believe it? David Lynch is from there. It was on a Wednesday, in a bingo hall. The guys that booked us put in a sound system and some lights, and we had 400 people there. One day later we played Seattle, then San Francisco, etc.

EP: What was the most interesting show?

SS: Detroit was interesting. We played the DEMF, but not the festival. We played at a theater. I never saw a city like this. It’s a shrinking city, but it’s a moving city.

EP: Wasn’t Berlin like that at some point? It’s been very trendy lately.

SS: It’s a good place for working, but it’s not paradise. It’s dirty, loud. But it’s cheaper than New York, and good food. Lots of communities from everywhere.

EP: You have a lot of people on this album: Otto von Schirach, Paul St. Hilaire…

SS: With Otto, we did this amazing cover version of Scooter’s “Hyper Hyper.” I said, “Do you know it?” He didn’t, so we sent him the original and then we did it. You know Otto? He’s a big blond guy with brown skin and he does shows with big outfits.

EP: How did you hook up with Paul St. Hilaire? You did something with him before — I think Dabrye did a remix.

SS: The Paul St. Hilaire song is a Moderat track, because we did it with Apparat, so we call ourselves Moderat. It’s not in the credits, but that’s it. Gernot worked at a record store called Hard Wax and Paul would come in. He started coming to our shows, then said, “Let’s do a track together.” He’s very organized.

EP: How did that work? I imagine you’re more spontaneous.

SS: In the past, we’d go in and just start pushing buttons. But for the new album we’d start at 6am and work like a regular day with a break in the middle for lunch, then we’d work some more.

EP: Which one of you is into customizing gear?

SS: I started with an 808 back in 1990, to learn how it worked. Then I met Gernot and we started working together.

EP: What were you planning on doing before music?

SS: Gernot used to work with handicapped kids. And I did a very dirty job. I worked in a concrete plant. I did that for a few years; then I found my second life.

EP: So now it’s just music? You don’t miss your old jobs?

SS: Modeselektor is our life now. It’s everything.

Album Review
August 30, 2007

Caribou
Andorra
Merge
August 21, 2007

Up in Flames is more than just the title of Manitoba’s final album: it also describes Dan Snaith’s transformation into a new production entity. Forced to reinvent himself after a legal tussle with a cantankerous rocker, Snaith emerged anew as Caribou for 2005 freak-jazz opus Milk of Human Kindness. On his latest record, Andorra, the producer returns with an even tighter, more rhythm-centric sensibility. Named after a Spanish town, the nine-track EP is heavy on harmonics and cascading walls of sound. The self-produced album swings with a big-band vibe, pumping psychedelic pop full of electronic reverie. Opener “Melody Day” proves that even flutes can rock, and rave-ready mini-epic “Niobe” brings the funky white noise to a tenderly layered close. Gilding the lily, Junior Boys’ Jeremy Greenspan joins in, as well, dropping lush guest vocals on “She’s the One.” Losing his identity may have been inconvenient for Snaith, but Andorra makes musical resurrection feel more like an act of magical rebellion.

-JH

Soulsavers: Land right

Soulsavers, “It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land.”

Got turned on to this by Steve a few weeks ago, before he moved out of NYC and upstate. Knowing nothing about the music, except that one of my best friends and ears in the game pulled it from his bag in inebriated excitement, I took to it late in one spring night as I fell asleep. Turns out the singer’s Mark Lanegan from Queens of the Stone Age, who comes off like some kind of Leonard Cohen/Tom Waits cat, worn out from the miles on his boots and whiskey in his liver. Lo-Fi, Alt.country “it” boy, Will Oldham makes an appearance as well.
Fits snugly on the iTunes next to Cortney Tidwell, El Perro Del Mar, Husky Rescue, Sufjan Stevens and our best friend of the week, Apparat.
Acoustic, trip hop, shoegazer honkey tonk? Sure, whatever. But, don’t even think of salvation. Just enjoy the dark ride..

Bjork & Apparat: Reviews

And now back to our regularly scheduled self-promotion. A very condensed rehash of Bjork, and an extended wanking of Apparat CD reviews in the current issue of Earplug (#95). Ah, the joys of recycling and the editing process.
Hey, this blog ain’t payin the bills just yet, m’kay?

You are here: Earplug Home > Issue #95

Apparat
Walls
Shitkatapult
May 15, 2007

The mere mention of a German electronic musician with operatic tendencies is enough to clear a common dance floor. Apparat cognoscenti know better. They know that Orchestra of Bubbles, his 2006 collaboration with electro doyenne Ellen Allien, wasn’t just a title; it’s his guiding aesthetic. His latest solo CD breaks from highbrow club banging to indulge more ambient, romantic impulses. Walls is suffused with such radiant tristesse that tracks like “Arcadia” and “Limelight” threaten to burst techno’s austere constraints and cross over to daring R&B playlists. On “Headup,” “Over and Over,” and “Hold On,” guest Raz Ohara’s soignée crooning wafts through thickets of breakbeat clatter, music-box pings, and symphonic laptop psychedelia with radio-ready ease. Rarely has dissonance flashed so alluringly. Mixed in Chicago with the assistance of Telefon Tel Aviv’s Joshua Eustis, Walls retains its experimental integrity while acquiring a winning electro-soul glow. The final effect transcends trainspotting altogether, alighting on a level of songwriting sophistication that global DJ culture would do well to embrace.

Volta
One Little Indian
May 07, 2007

Lately, whenever 41-year-old Björk peers over her shoulder, the bitwise sprite beholds a trail ablaze with quirky imitators nipping at her iconoclastic heels. While her latest is indeed co-produced (in part) with hip-hop chart czar Timbaland, it’s immediately apparent who’s schooling whom. (Hint: Timba long ago sampled “Joga” for a Missy Elliot track.) With a title invoking an African river, the inventor of the electrical battery, and poetic structure, Volta’s charged ambitions and rapturous production coalesce into a potency that rivals Post, Homogenic, or Vespertine. Familiar in places, Volta flares brightest on the tingling, noirish “Vertebrae by Vertebrae,” the heavy-lidded Antony duet “The Dull Flame of Desire,” “Hope” (the Timba-produced staccato ditty about a pregnant suicide bomber), and the polyrhythmically perverse “Earth Intruders” and “Declare Independence.” No longer muse du jour, Björk is still plenty amped and in command of her pagan agenda. As Volta — and her recent show-stopping Coachella performance — attest, Björk’s supernova hasn’t dimmed; the sky’s just suddenly oh so… crowded.

-JH

All that Scratch Massive’s making me itch

Parisian duo Maud Geffray and Sebastien Chenut get off on mainlining the darker waves of the electro-techno spectrum. Their speedball sound, like the cover art to their new album, is sinister, lusty, and restless. Recorded for their own label, Chateau Rouge, and mastered by Basic Channel’s Moritz Von Oswald, Scratch Massive’s Time is marked by a luxe, indulgent, but meticulous tone that fuses their French gothic swoon to German precision. The ambient “Soleil Noir” echoes disembodied Beatles harmonies, the opener “Fake Lesbian” rides Laidback’s blip-zip “White Horse” groove, and “Shining in My Vein”, “Girls on Top,” and “Like You Said” are acid-laced industrial rollers. Alongside the edgier, original material, the Cure’s “Three Imaginary Boys” cover lands a bit hard. As Time bears out, Scratch Massive etch their most scintillating tracks when left to their own lugubrious devices.

#