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.

Nostalgia

Here at So Culture, we love anything that has a remotely '80s disco style vibe which makes up a huge portion of the current Parisian music scene. Of course, when I say 'we', I mean 'I'. The revival of this sound has come in many different shapes and sizes, influencing a sizeable portion of today's musicians. On a broader scale, it's not hard to notice that electro has snuck it's way into the charts through the likes of Lady GaGa and Kanye West, who have taken a leaf out of this scene. For example, Kanye clearly soaked up a lot of french touch as his career progressed; videos directed by french elecro label Ed Banger's So Me, his track with Daft Punk and the electronic production heard on 808's & Heartbreak. Lady GaGa uses vintage synths more often than not and this is one of reason's I think she's become so successful; everyone's loving that sound. This post is about that sound in a more unadulterated form than from what you might hear on the charts.

Washed Out - Feel It All Around
This is one nostalgic, lo-fi heat haze of a disco dreamwave track. If this song were a day, it would be incredibly hot and humid. You'd be sleepily staring out the window in the back of a camper van as it rattles along a dusty, rural road.

Data - Aerius Light (Breakbot Remix)
Although Breakbot is not the most well-known, for me, he is a definitive character of the french touch scene. Because of this, it's no surprise that the label belonging to Busy P (otherwise known as Pedro Winter), 'Ed Banger', scouted out Breakbot and signed him. His music encompasses all of that which I associate with that retro funky electro sound; highly processed drums, old-school synths and catchy bass hooks with an all round choppy finish. This french electro remix of a french electro track is, unsurprisingly, no exception.

Delorean - Deli
Delorean craft -real- pop music. Deli captures a true holiday, summer-nights disco vibe with a guitar sound that's been missing in great pop music for the past 20 years.

Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (Yuksek Edit)
I think of Yuksek in a very similar way as Breakbot, especially his choice to take on this track which has reached legendary status in the world of the electro hipster. A modest but probably more accurate decision to label this rework as an edit as opposed remix, Yuksek gives that track a little more french electro oomph than before.

Also, I feel obliged to post the new Friendly Fires track as I now have a decent version of it - it's not live and it's not a radio rip! So in all it's tropical, tribal, shimmering and euphoric glory, I give you the indie electro pioneers' latest track:

Friendly Fires - Kiss Of Life

Although this isn't too closely related to the rest of today's post, if it was any better, it could send you into an epic disco seizure. That's also pretty fun I guess. Besides, Friendly Fires said themselves one day they're gonna live in Paris.

Ahh it feels good to get a post in that isn't all over the place and has some kind of direction. I hope you enjoyed reading.

Pop-Hop?

Above we have one of a new wave of rappers, Wale, shopping for a pretty pair of new shoes.

Is it cool for rappers/hip-hoppers to rap over quirky hits nowadays? I'm sure it's been done before, but it seems since Kanye West reworked Daft Punk, I've been seeing a lot more artists sampling 'cool' songs. I guess, once he made 'Stronger', this was the transitional period where he started blogging, embraced the french electro scene, started thinking he was an artist, and turned freaky (Martin Luther King Jr?..)

What I'm saying is that, it seems these hip-hoppers are using trendy songs by trendy bands for trendy people for their samples, in hope that they'll eventually get big and into the charts. It's the same thing with grime - noticed how a load of grime artists have made it into the charts with tunes that have the grime factor turned down a notch? Wiley, Skepta, Chipmunk, Lethal Bizzle, Dizzee Rascal! How I could I forget Dizzee Rascal's collab with Armand Van Helden! Yeah sure you might call that grimey, but not in the same way. I'm not saying I dislike any of this stuff anyway, it's all good fun :)

But yeah, the grime --> electro/pop crossover is one thing, but now there's these new trendy, genre splicing rappers popping up all over the place. I've gotten quite into it, check out this new trend below:

Chiddy Bang - Kids (feat. MGMT)

Kanye West - Young Folks
Not in the same position as these other guys, but still good fun!

Wale - W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.

Chiddy Bang - Truth (feat. Passion Pit)
Chiddy Bang was pretty quick on this one, realising the endless amount of hype surrounding Passion Pit. Some are calling them this year's MGMT. I guess Chiddy Bang's got a theme running.

Wale - Chillin' (feat. Lady Gaga)
This doesn't use a chart hit as a backing track but it's still good. I thought Lady Gaga was too 'up there' to feature on this, but I guess she's a kind girl, or she's friends with Wale, or she just like the idea of this collaboration. Whatever, it's catchy.

Let's not forget Kid Cudi, he's my favourite out of all this lot, but I thought it'd be unfair to the others if I posted another one of his tracks - I'll do it some other time.

Bouba

Hello. I hope all your exams are going well, or if you've done your exams then I hope you are enjoying your time off, or if you have not had exams or have any exams coming up then.. I hope you are doing alright too.

Anyway, I'm in a particularly mellow mood tonight - definetely a 'Bouba' mood. I found that word out the other day, it's pretty cool. There's this thing called the 'Bouba/Kiki' effect - basically it proves that humans can attribute certain qualities to certain shapes/sounds/etc. For example, which one of the shapes below would you call Bouba and which would you call Kiki?

It seems pretty obvious and it should be as almost 98% of tested people go for the same choices. It's clever and kinda shows why people use words such as 'smooth' and 'filthy' to describe music.

As you can tell I've got too much spare time on my hands right now - that is the mood I'm in, and that is the feel of the music I've handpicked for you right now:

Yacht - Psychic City
Youthful, and really quite catchy. These guys are playing a free instore gig at Pure Groove in London in July, check it out, these lot are hotly tipped.

Feist - Mushaboom (IAMXL Remix)
IAMXL gives this shoegazey, country-girl tune (featured on some T-Mobile advert I believe) an old-skool touch up.

Lykke Li - Everybody But Me

Cute and playful b-side from the Swedish indie-pop dame Lykke Li, who is currently writing her second album but 'insists it will be a long wait until it is finished for fans to hear.'

Dark Night of the Soul

Yay, it's a Saturday. I woke up this morning and thought it was Sunday, it's always nice when you realise you've got an extra day in the weekend isn't it?

Anyway, there's been news that Dangermouse (DJ, half of Gnarls Barkley) and Sparklehorse's nearly three year long collaboration album, Dark Night of the Soul, is not getting a release. Threeeeee years! The album's been labelled as 'one of the most mysterious release of 2009' but due to 'unspecified legal issues with EMI', there may never be a hard copy available for release as our artists run the risk of being sued.

If EMI and the producers do not come to an agreement, it has been said that, as an act of defiance, the album will be shipped containing a hand-numbered, 100+ page photobook and a blank, recordable CD. Every copy will be clearly labelled with 'For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.' Quite handily, there will also be website notes to download all tracks of the album on to the CD. Quite a middle finger to EMI, I guess.

On top of that, there's a load of big names featuring on the album; Julian Casablancas (Strokes) [New album later this year!!], Frank Black (Pixies), Iggy Pop, James Mercer (The Shins), The Flaming Lips and more. As mentioned earlier, there will also be photography inspired by and based on the album which has been taken and compiled by David Lynch and is supposed to provide a visual narrative to the music. Check out the whole collaboration and the backstory here or listen to some of the tracks below:

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Everytime I'm With You (feat. Jason Lytle)

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Insane Lullaby (feat. James Mercer)

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Little Girl (feat. Julian Casablancas)

Bonus:

Sparklehorse - Sad and Beautiful World