4.07.2007

music: LCD Soundsystem

File their latest under 'best new releases'.

The dude channels styles in an eerie pitch-perfect way that can be downright creepy, and his production is so polished and tight it can feel hermetic. Two reasons why I haven't really cottoned to previous releases- he has a couple of songs that I think are brilliant, but I'd never think of listening to a whole disc.

Not the case with his new one. The genre channeling and the spotless production are still in place, but it feels like they've been yoked to the service of some greater good, like an ox pulling a wagon full of rice up the hill to an orphanage.

The best songs sound like a happy collision of 70's Fripp & Eno and the stripped-down Prince of the early 80's by way of the electronic branch of the new wave. And the mix is reversed- most of the stuff here is noteably good, a few tracks are instant classics and there's only one comparative 'dud', which only looks weak next to the majesty of the rest of the disc.

My favorite track so far is North American Scum, a fantastically minimal cocktail of chicken-scratch guitar, muted cowbell & fat bass that periodically explodes in a grand bouquet of a chorus.

But it only has a slim lead over killer tracks like Someone Great, All my Friends, Us vs Them & New York I Love You.

Someone Great is a great New Wave classic lost in a vault for 25 years. It would fit seamlessly on one of those decade-spanning Rhino compilations, sandwiched between ABC & Haircut 100. Us vs Them is actually kind of thin, but its fantastic use of cowbell covers a multitude of sins. All My Friends is absolutely relentless and builds momentum like an avalanche, sweeping you away.

Actually, I think that one's my favorite.
It's got that magic spark, it expands beyond itself into that 4th dimension only great music can access.

Anyway, there are a bunch of great songs here, and a couple of really good ones.
I can see it getting heavy rotation at future Secret Garden dance parties.

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