Tuesday, May 13, 2008  12:21 am 

2OJFG’s Italo Disco Day, no.3835

20JFG are once again lost in the haunted starfields of discomatic space, and is it any coincidence that Strut is resurrected and about to release a compilation entitled “Disco Italia”? - no, it was always written in the heavens! This compilation should just be the most awesomest, hitting the listener with one rare gem after the other from the likes of gay leather fist-of-fun merchants, Easy Going, plus their cousin band Kasso, the high priests of planet Africa, Kano and Valentine’s call and response strutfest, “Tina Are You Ready?” (no room for vocals on that one, its b-boy made of ice instrumental). Then there is this:

Number One Ensemble - Flor De Coca

The compiler of this Italian vision of mirrorball adoration, Steve Kotey (member of Chicken Lips), heads for the more organic sound of italo, less laser more low slung bass and dance guitar, drum machines turned off and drum sticks dusted off. Just think how Kano were a proper band with the black spirit of funk twisting through the instruments, and not just a shady Italian producer who stuck out an icy finger and pressed it doen on a keyboard. “Flor De Coca” by Number One Ensemble twangs into existence, soaring across rousing strings of silvery delicate strands, as an angelic choir evoke ethereal tales of magical love across the skies.

More re-releases of forgotten greats from the crystal vaults of Italo come from the Synthonic label, who release a double headed 12″ disco dragon with MC1 and Egotrya - two entities shrouded in mystery.

Memory Control One (MC1) - Counter

Memory Control One (MC1) were first heard spinning out from the cold centre of space with bubbling synthetic brilliance on DJ Mooner’s epic exploration into 33rpm dance music, the “Elaste: Slow Motion Disco” compilation. “Counter” thumps with kick drums and metropolitan synth stabs that fire beams of light into the sky where the neon outline of a female dancer strides in heels across the dark backdrop of the night sky. The very best italo is faultlessly shimmering, devoid of vocals and features too many melodies for just one song, each one trying to out do the other of the most dramatic synthline award - this song has all that. Check the 12″ at Juno.

Lastly, we visit the yacht of Mr Dompteur Mooner, moored up on an exclusive island just off the coast of Paradise. Pollyester is here, lounging in the shadow of a pyramidical umbrella, the infinite flashing cosmos reflected in her vintage sunglasses.

Pollyester - You Are Amen (Dompteur Mooner Mix)

Its nitetime so Dompteur Mooner can begin, sending out a signal of darkly skeletal synthesiser blips, hissing and clicking in a slow advancement across the waters, away from paradise and down into the murky depths of intrigue. These depths are still vaguely lit by the steely cobalt blue of the moon reflecting on the surface, but the slight breeze chops up the beats into percussive loops and sinister elements close in on the vocals, restricting them to solemn hummings.

—-

TONITE! >>>>>>

labels >> italo, mc1, number one ensemble, pollyester

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Monday, May 12, 2008  12:01 am 

Es la Buena Ola

Que Bueno!

Portland cuates Magic Johnson follow the proud tradition of bands preoccupied with domestic issues (ah, the Barcelona Pavillion!) to deliver instant pyrokinetic no wave fun packing the same rambunctious punch of winningnest outfits Mika Miko or Finally Punk, ‘Telenovelas’, their new 7” on OlFactory records is instinctive block party hardcore that stretches like mega sugar high-inducing sticky as fuck pink chewing gum to bring together the grainy DIY superheroics of Jerusalem Crickets and the ramshackle street soul of UT, this is the musical equivalent of a Powell-Peralta skateboard covered with neon calaveras being smashed against the plasma screen TV during a house party that Chelo’s parents will never forget, awesome!

Magic Johhnson- Pa Su Mecha

And all our love to Bianca.

XYX have strapped us to their lucky charm keyring right by the paw of death, and we couldn’t think of a better place to be, their ‘Sistema de Terminacion Sexual’ Seven (first heard in Art for Spastics, claro) is blues noise charged with the taut wild-eyed sexual turmoil of Be Your Own Pet or Yeah Yeah Yeahs before they went AOR, and the ominous black magic of suicide bikers These are Powers, fuzzy guitars zig zag turbulent like a crippled joyride in the rusty carousel of vampire haunted Santa Carla, there’s a bunch of leather-clad kids with long yellow fangs and cool raybans floating in the darkness outside the bonfire of your keg-party and the rest of the story is pure splatter, which is the way we like it.

XYX- Nunca Nunca

HEALTH with Revenge of Shinobi and Medicine and Duty at the Freebutt tonight. BLAST

Glass Candy tomorrow. Life After Sundown.

labels >> Magic Johnson, XYX

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Friday, May 9, 2008  12:01 am 

I’ve missed you

You never send me those lovely letters any more

That time you dreamt of dreaming of being taken up by the birds surfing over the capricious spirals of a wind drawn with delicate lines rising to face gaping clouds dissolving into faces telling you of things you ought not to forget, of things that needed solving down in that ground you had just abandoned, you covered your ears and closed your eyes and let birds with glimmering eyes take you up, just below that space in the unforgiving dome which glimmered with the intensity of a mystery awaiting beyond the grey veil, this is the music you left behind you in an empty grove where things that needed solving were left unsolved so that mysteries that had to be faced were faced, and so they were, we saw a lightning bolt but we never heard the thunder.

Tickley Feather- Fancy Walking

We have championed Tickley Feather since we first listened to her in Art for Spastics, her bewitched S/T album out in Paw Tracks (Badmaster Records if you want vinyl, you so do) is the realisation of a lovely promise, or isn’t Fancy Walking the echo of placid and dreamy humming emerging from a heart-shaped den in the midst of the forests where the threads of the universe are being knit, so you can wear it like a warm sweater covered in the most beautiful patterns?

That time you went to the island, you told me about it with words stolen from someone who had been there before you

‘All down the west coast of the island at night glitter the lights of a city five miles long, its towers like black and gold cigarette packs standing on end. In the malls fluorescent light skids off the surfaces of hard and soft designer goods: matte plastic, foams of lace and oyster satin, the precise curves of cars and shoes and shoulder pads. This city is well-known for the scent of Anais Anais in its street; stacked video screens in the cocktail lounges; and, down by the ocean front- where men push past you smelling of sweat and seafood, and you can hear the soundtrack of your own life playing from the dashboard of a white car- neon of green, red or frosty blue. Music pulses from the amusement arcades, clears its throat in the night clubs. In the jazz bars they serve only Black Heart rum, and you can hear the intricate bass lines twenty miles out to sea‘.

I fell in love in this city I had never been with someone I had never seen, all through the words you had stolen and the music they became

Automat- The Rise, The Advance, the Genius (Original 1978)

The Cosmic Club people keep going from strength to strength, Automat’s ‘The Rise, The Advance, the Genius’ included in the fourth volume of their fantastic 12” compilations is the sound of a quartet of tuxedo-clad chrome androids passionately re-interpreting Giorgio Moroder’s the Chase to soundtrack Aha’s famous music video of romantic adventures across the pages of a graphic novel if only it had been written by early era William Gibson, shot in the perfect blue of a Michael Mann stylistic overdose, and ended with the echo of her stilettos fading away in the distance of a neon-lit back-alley, love doesn’t get any more synthetic than this, but it doesn’t get any realer either.

This one goes for Hugo, we hope last night was magic.

labels >> Automat, tickley feather, xxjfg

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008  7:42 am 

Me and Niko down in Bohan (a true story)

20jazzfunkgreats consider it a crying shame that what could well be the crowning achievement of British popular culture this century, GTA IV is being greeted with all sorts of desultory and misinformed comments from the usual sanctimonious scaremongering suspects, who of course haven’t played it. The game is a thing of beauty (in spite of the oft clunky targeting and covering, and the frustrating save system, you can’t have it all my friend), its main problem is that our addiction to it is detracting from other worthy activities such as reading psychedelic sci-fi novels and writing in this blog of yours truly. The character of Niko Bellic might well be the most wonderfully fleshed out, witty and sympathetic ‘good guy in a bad fix’ we have come across since Carlito Brigante and Neil McCauley. We almost feel guilty when we engage in random acts of mayhem on the way between missions, but that doesn’t stop us, we are trigger happy passive aggressive catharsis-chasing nerds you know. And hey, this is a video game, not real life, anyone unable to differentiate between both has bigger issues than GTA IV.

A key element of pleasure and satisfaction is of course the music of the wonderfully curated radio stations: the other day I jacked this car, and as I was speeding away from the cops Black Devil Disco Club’s ‘The Devil in Us (In Dub)’ kicked in and I almost creamed my pants, seriously, driving around Liberty City one misty night while listening to the avant garde/kosmische selection of the Journey, is as enthralling a cultural experience as any recent visit to a museum, which in a way is what GTA is, a living museum and a beautiful rorscharch test crafted with love, humour and passion, hats off to Rockstar North and Sam Hauser, this is frankly amazing.

As a tribute, here you have some of our favourite tunes included in its playlists, enjoy!

Global Communication-8.07

The aforementioned robo-curated Journey Station contains gems such as Global Communication’s ‘8.07′, hexagonal synthetic chains of silver sound expanding into the confines of the universe and further out, this is the heavy metal music of cosmogonists and astrogrators, and as it plays stars flare up in the darkness like lighters illuminating the circular contracting auditorium of the universe, to create an spectacle that makes us cry in wonder and joy.

Cerrone- Supernature

Karl Lagerfeld’s K109 the Studio is disco galore, Skatt Bros and the beginning of an epic neverending odyssey of spaced-out French disco inside which we are forever lost delighted, it’s not that they don’t make music like this these days, it’s that it’s fucking difficult to make music like this these days, seriously, on top of those accelerated processes of technological ‘advance’ which have obliterated many secrets of the warm art of sound engineering (how did the ancients make the cathedrals? fuck knows!), we have a music industry retreating hasty into the cost-efficient world of ringtones and the such, now, who would have what it takes (probably a coke-blinded ego) to invest on the creation of a lush visionary opus such as Cerrone’s? The European Commission? Rrright…

Nitzer Ebb- Let Your Body Learn

Francois K’s ElectroChoc contains a good bunch of modern trendy dance music which is all fine and good, but sort of pales in comparison to Nitzer Ebb’s throbbing slab of nihilistic EBM sitting in its midst like a hammerhead shark lurking ravenous in the depths of the blue, it is pedestrian carnage and SWAT good times whenever this leather-clad Liquid Liquid pumped on steroids killer kicks in the stereo, and we are sort of justified aren’t we? It doesn’t get much more aggro than this.

XXXXX

In a forthcoming post we shall be putting up some songs which we would have included in GTA IV radio if we had been curating it, check it up!

IF YOU ARE IN BERLIN TOMORROW

Go to the launch party of Discos Capablanca- This is the loving project of psyche-noir disco sorcerer, 20JFG associate and all-around winner and good guy Hugo Capablanca, we’d love to be there but thinks are a bit crazy right now. So go, and give Hugo an enormous hug from us, this is the beginning of something very special.

labels >> Cerrone, GTA IV, Global Communication, Nitzer Ebb

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008  9:26 am 

The Bloodening

Reality bites us, but you know how we roll.

An international team of biologists travel to the barren lands of London to investigate the impact of the electoral catastrophe in the life-forms of the area. Picture this- a charismatic and rugged Kurt Russell type, a nerdy quantitative analysis guy with empathy deficit issues, a blonde tree-hugging amazon and a clean-cut chemical engineer with a few ties with the pharmaceutical cartels, all of them sitting in an old Lynx helicopter as it flies over the immense and ominous grey landscapes, fragile papier mache trees contorted like the handicrafts of deranged children, and pock-marked buildings which stand desolate with their windows gaping mute witnesses to a horror too ghastly to be described. The shadow of the helicopter singular sign of life under a pale sun glaring like a white hole in the sky, the arpeggiated synth fingers of an icy symphony of horror spreads lugubrious around the rattling cockpit where our protagonists sit apprehensive.

Der Zyklus- Quasar

Icy electroid maestros Der Zyklus have included this oppressive piece of throbbing Carpenterian tension in their new ‘Cherenkov Radiation EP’, to which we listen with a smile in our thin purple lips while stroking the serrated edges of a hunting knife, sense and sensibility but not the way you thought.

Being ambushed by cannibal degenerates clad in rural garments stitched with human skin who follow the dumb council of a rambling albino shaman, and having to watch them skinning their guides alive as a tribute to the phosphorescent deity that roams the woods, so that it might favour them in they their war against the packs of telepathic feral rats that inhabit the neighbourhood doesn’t contribute to the peace of mind of our conflicted team of biologists.

The nefariously seductive vibrations of The Pyramids spread over us like magenta ectoplasm slowly spilling out of the eyes and nostrils of a cadaveric medium during a seance where we try to contact the darken spirit which inhabits Deerhunter’s house on top of the hill, their s/t album could well soundtrack those close-ups of creepy objects so common in the films of Dario Argento, just before everything goes Profondo Rosso.

The Pyramids- The Echo of Something Lovely

It all finishes on a suitable grand way as the heroes of the story confront the aforementioned deity, a Cthonic monstrosity of malign intentions that dwells in the vaults of an abandoned underground station, its psychic tendrils have warped the minds and bodies of the creatures in the area, transforming them into its bloodthirsty worshippers.

Oh, the horror, this might be the cause of it all, some crippling virus which impacts the intellect turning human brains with the potential to reach the stars into feeble and pale blobs that twitch and spasm following the binary combo of primitive forces, hate and fear. We leave our team in the plotting stages of an incursion into the esoteric section of the library of the British Museum intent on unearthing a spell with which to vanquish the invading intelligence back to the void where it belongs, so that the peoples of London can be free. They can count on the collaboration of an intrepid partisan underground which has remained in the ruins of the city to continue fighting the good fight,

London, we heart you, what happened?

We remember seeing Trencher soundcheck before they played at the Do last summer, glorious bristling evil projected out of nightmarish-looking synthetisers being sharpened for the kill so that the grind might be put back into grindcore, well, one of them has let all these slasher film-influenced vibrations spill in the vicious hacking and mauling of Queen of Swords, our new favourite band. They are releasing a split with Humanfly, and this is an excerpt from their 15 minute long pandemonium of horror, gargantuan doom music that intoxicates the puny souls of your 20jazzfunkgreats kids and sends them spinning into the limbo of the damned, a lounge of shadows where we sit surrounded by emaciated cadavers while a nurse clad in a decomposing shroud talks backwards over a Goblin’s music score, so that the un-settlement might be complete and most sinisterly satisfactory way, and our reservoirs of spiritual energy refilled before returning to a world where we often awake fearful, even after the gnarliest nightmare.

Queen of Swords- New Knives (edit)

labels >> Der Zyklus, London, Queen of Swords, The Pyramids, xxjfg

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