Ed's Banging

You may or may not know that I have a soft spot for anything that is/sounds remotely like french electro (as many others do too, I'm sure). This movement was arguably pioneered by the 'Ed Banger' record label; most signed seem to be living off the fat wads of cash they made during the so-called electro glory days of '06 and '07 as there hasn't been too much activity from the crew lately. I believe Justice are occasionally being borrowed by clubs around the world to do DJ sets for lots and lots of money, chain smoking as they go.

As you can imagine I was mildly excited when I heard of a new video for 'Pop The Glock', the biggest and most well known track from Ed Banger's sexually active rapper chick Uffie. The video itself is.. questionable; a 'quirky' indie/hipster party/jam at Uffie's pad with random motion graphics sequences every here and there. Although it does kinda make me want to hang out with them.

The sheer average-ness of the video doesn't faze me as the song is good fun and it could mean the Ed Banger lot are making a comeback, perhaps not as big as they were in the 'glory days', but these things are cyclical, right?

And the relevant mpthreels:

Uffie - Pop The Glock (SebastiAn Remix)
True to his style, SebastiAn chops up the vocals and serves them back to us over a slower-than-usual, fuzzy, lo-fi beat resulting in this trudging electro jam.

Justice - Phantom Pt. II (Boyz Noise Remix)
I find you can never go wrong with remixe by/of Justice. Boyz Noise gives this banger more of an intense, techno edge, chopping and looping that electro distortion. I like his take on that distinctive string riff.

Donovan - Chord
A staple track for any french electro enthusiasts out there. I don't think there's any part of this that doesn't remind me of the Parisian electro scene. An effortlessly suave delivery from Donovan who is currently touring with Vitalic if you're interested in either of them - I'm sure it'd make for a great gig.

Have a nice day people.

A Selection Of Electronically Crafted Tunes

So, for the past few days I've been away at Reading Festival. It's made me realise that, although I loved many of the bands there, my musical taste is slowly shifting away from your typical Reading/Leeds Festival bands. I was planning on doing a post on the highlights of the festival, but I'm sure you would have heard half the content or even been there to see it yourself. In light of that, here's a few Not-So-Reading-Festival tracks that I've been all over lately:

Boys Noize - Ja!
A fairly new track from the Berlin-based techno pioneers. It's a lot smoother round the edges compared to their older material and you'll get more of an emotive feel than their previous electro distortion.

Joakim - Spiders
Joakim now performs as 'Joakim & The Disco' as his live band. Spiders is a mix of effortless synth work with some chanting vocals. I found it to be a bit of a grower - just wait for that guitar riff to come in; you'll appreciate more every time.

Instra:mental - Watching You
Watching You is Instra:mental's own IDM/Glitch flavour of Drum and Bass with those unique vocals, courtesy of d-Bridge. A particularly original track; so much so that I'm finding it hard to describe the feel even as I'm listening to it now - I guess you'll just have to listen to it yourself.

Flying Lotus - Tea Leaf Dancers
There's a load of critical acclaim surrounding Flying Lotus, but not the kind that sends musicians so commercial that they can't top the hype. Perhaps it's because he's crafted quite a niche brand of fuzzed out, wonky, hip-hop influenced electronic which I'm in love with right now. Tea Leaf Dancers mixes a slow, sleepy drum beat with ghostly, ebbing vocals and synths - beautiful and very, very cool.

This track also comes with a great video, which is what I think first caused me to check FlyLo out. Apologies for the quality, it was the only real video on YouTube:

Maybe some of the chaps above will play at Reading Festival in the future, but I think I'll check out Creamfields or Bestival next year.