who?
october twenty-ninth | eight thirty post meridiem
Present Lover
Eyez sums up in her description most of my feelings about electroclash. I always thought electro was best situated where it was: as the last cyborg jerkings of the Pop Star Body before it evaporated and dispersed in House, Techno, and everything that came after. Christ, who wants to watch performers anymore? Unless it's a really great band, but those are becoming rarer and rarer. Polly Jean Harvey and Jarvis Cocker both give me a charge (or at least they did four years ago!); I'd imagine Morrissey could (or at least could've) do(ne) the same. Then there are other bands which just give a good show without necessarily impressing by their presence. There's also the freak show balladeers, the Tom Waits and Nick Cave types, which are sort of in another category altogether. But plastic music should be bodiless, or at least viral in the sense that it infects your body. There's a reason nearly all of my favorite recent dance artists take from dub, disco, and acid house: the sounds can chase each other around the stereo spectrum without having to spiral back in on a single figure: the affected disaffected narrator, punching a silhouette of ego and identity and style into what should be twisting, churning goops of taffee.
I read an online exchange with rock critic Simon Frith recently in which he contrasted identity with friendship, and claimed to be more interested in the latter. I'm definitely inclined to agree, though it's something that deserves more thought (like, is this why cult stud academics hate each other so much? har har har). Electroclash is, of course, all identity - a defensive, sneering identity, even. House and disco are friendship.
Recent CDs: Kompakt's Total 4 comp (which I haven't listened to yet), Pantytec's Pony Slaystation (not much listened to, though it sounds promising; much better than Swayzak), and the (deep breath) second, long-awaited Force Tracks comp, Digital Disco, which is going round and round nonstop, even though it does fall off a bit towards the end. Do I need to tell you again that Luomo is GOD SEX? If Christ barebacked Mohammed, this would be their cries of joy and delight. MRI keep getting better as well; "Disco Discovery" probably comes closest to the idealized notion of disco as anything on the album: all bubbling synths twining around each other like veins pumping Courvoisier, rising and rising over the 4/4 groundswell bass until it pours out the top into the swirling eddies of the Luomo track. It's a breathtaking one-two opening. The last year and a half has been the most intensely puppy lovedup time for me and pop music since 1995. The amount of good stuff that's coming out, and they extent to which it's evolving and growing in unexpected ways, is incredible. I only wish I could write about it more eloquently (and less plagiaristically haha) to display the jumping-around-clapping quality of my feelings. I WANT TO MAKE BABIES TO THIS MUSIC. I WANT TO MAKE BABIES WITH THIS MUSIC.
PS- I went back and found the exact Frith quote and look what it says: "I'm more interested in friendship than identity, which definitely goes against the grain of cultural studies academia presently." HAR HAR HAR burn! etc. etc.
PPS- I think this: But plastic music should be bodiless, or at least viral in the sense that it infects your body is the most confused sentence I haf evah written. *cringe*