It's me or the prog

Fuck. Another day, another shedload of fine tunes to dutifully shove your way. It took a good four hundred and thirty years, but eventually everyone came to dig Sebastien Tellier's 'La Ritournelle', reaching gamely for the hyperbole and the laboured 'Unfinished Sympathy' comparisons. I mean, yeah, it was pretty sublime - but the critical frothing it engendered made it seem like no-one had ever heard a pretty tune and a bunch of strings before. Not to belittle Seb's artul arrangement, tender vocal and the crucial act of just GETTING IT DONE, but...Anyway, the current issue is - how can this laconic French stoner (pictured) follow such an idiosyncratic hit? Well, for a start, he can commission a rolling, druggy disco-funk remix (God, there's not many of them about) from the Chicken Lips. Coming across like one of the less remorseless tracks by Andy 'Lip's Emperor Machine project, this version of 'Broadway' is well produced - but beneath the squelchy, motorik psychedelia sounds we all naturally warm to, something is curiously amiss. I confess I haven't heard Tellier's original, so it's difficult to know who to hold to account for the wishy-washy bass/synth melody which underpins things...Given that said melody is repeated continuously for the track's entire eight or so minutes, it needs to impress - and it doesn't, seemingly one note short of anything approaching perfection. Smoke a few, and the insidious squiggles and subtle crescendos will grip your brain tightly. Apart from that it's just....boring. If anyone's first impressions are often seriously skewed, though, it's mine. So judge for yourself:

Download:
Sebastien Tellier - Broadway (Chicken Lips Dub) // Record Makers





The other day I put up Serge Santiago's stellar re-rub of Goldfrapp's 'Ride A White Horse' - it was, to all intents and purposes, the absolute shit - like all the best disco, old and new, it was camp as a row of tents (poor, and not even mine..) and hard as nails at the same time. A triumph. So when I stumbled across Ewan Pearson's 'Disco Odyssey Mix' of the very same tune, my eyebrows rose of their own accord...I mean, what could Ewan do to match the effortless italo strut of Serge's mix? Well, he could produce an elongated studio jam that ticks off pretty much every disco sub-genre on God's earth as it stretches out well into next week. And guess what - that's exactly what he has done. The sounds are as pleasurable and precise as we've come to expect from Kidderminster's finest but given that the track clocks in at an unforgiving 15minutes+, he permits himself a fair amount of time to show off. Ewan, wry as ever, says of this mix on his website: "You can judge for yourselves just how bloated and ludicrous I have become." Well, my judgement is, um, very. But the bottom line is this: the end product is fantastic, retrofuturistic house writ large. I wrote last week that I'm waiting for the day when these expansive, arsey disco 'odysseys' start becoming unbearable, and it's with a mixture of glee and dismay I announce to you that the day in question has yet to arrive. Probably, I venture, 'cos it's consummate, cerebral dancefloor engineers like Ewan P running the show. We all know that this is a golden age for production, so let's allow these guys to indulge themselves, and more importantly us, for a little while longer. Think of the colossal body of work that the noughties is leaving in its insane wake. Now that's ludicrous.(Prog)Rock on.

Download:
Goldfrapp - Ride A White Horse (Ewan Pearson's Disco Odyssey Mix Pts. 1 & 2) // Mute





I don't know shit about Australian duo The Presets, there's really no point in lying...What I do know is that on this mix Cut Copy (pictured above) bring the electro-pop goodness and acquit themselves as able, sensitive producers who know where to locate the melody amidst the funk (and in doing so blow the normally-reliable Digitalism's mix of their own 'Going Nowhere' out of the water). The result is so breezily catchy that it's almost forgettable. Know what I mean? No, me neither. Basically, it's really fucking nice and madly addictive. Download it.

Download:
The Presets - Girl and The Sea (Cut Copy Remix) // Modular