Health & Cheer To All Gingers

Ummm... so a couple of shock-tactic new music videos that both happen to be pretty amazing.
First is for HEALTH's We Are Water by Eric Wareheim (via City Slang), and second is another slice of teenage apocalyptica by Romain Gavras (remember Stress?) for M.I.A's new song Born Free (great song as well)...
I like them, if that's the right word....

Moderat Makes Australians Cry

If Apparat isn't everything that's good about electronic music at the moment, he's certainly a reminder that it can be meaningful and emotional. Not the sweaty, pilled-up emotion of Soulwax or Justice, but the heart-string plucking kind; the kind that's usually the preserve of a well scored slice of premium cinema.

He started with Orchestra of Bubbles, a collaboration with Ellen Allien in 2006 that hinted at the human behind the techno beat; placing a subtle question mark over the typically soulless nature of electronic music. Then came the solo Walls in 2007, experimenting with downtempo and providing moments of sheer beauty (Useless Information, Arcadia).

Most recently was the collaboration with Modeselektor; Moderat. Initially I was worried the collaboration might see him straying from this living, breathing roboticism and into the more disposable aspects of his collaborators, but it seems the opposite was the case. What the collaboration brought in repetition and structure seemingly amplified the contrast... the industrial and the mechanical, and the emotive.


A friend recently recounted the following; it was a rainy, artistically productive day, and a group of them were sat smoking weed and drawing. Conditions, as Flight of the Conchords stated, were perfect, my friend put on LP highlight Out of Sight and returned to his drawing. When he looked up, he noticed an Australian, shedding a solitary tear.

If you can find it, there's a deluxe edition of the LP that has a second disk with a visual accompaniment, a sort of minimal series of music videos. Again, a hint at how to progress given the dismal future of albums, music videos and budgets in general.

Simian Mobile Disco Revitalize!

Firstly, apologies to the barely breathing parties for the lack of updates. I've been away with the fairies.

Here's something for you though... a Simian Mobile Disco video. SMD are something of an interesting notion to me, on one hand they were very active during the recent tech-electro boom, but never quite reaching the stratospheres of say Justice. They released some anthems during this period, but at the same time they didn't homogenize their sound, and therefore their appeal in the same way as Digitalism for example.

As those familiar with the history of SMD will know, it is their ability to evolve that has provided them with some longevity without resorting to formula. Both song and video here are testament to a next step. 'Electro' music and the music video concept are currently suffering a troubling period; electro has attempted parallel movements towards disco in the wake of it's over speculative explosion, and the music video is in the process of being over saturated by no-budget concept pieces... you know, the ones with the fingers, people walking on beds on their sides, etc etc etc...

Shrewdly then, we see an example of both being subverted, or progressed perhaps. (This is not the first time they've offered something of a subversion within the video form.) The music is an obvious old-school throwback, but in a somewhat sideward step when compared to their peers. The video takes the no-budget concept, throws it on it's head and reminds us of the fundamental appeal of dance music.