Tuesday, February 9, 2010  12:05 am 

Shake & Punk

In the No Wave book by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, there is a photo of Glenn Branca and the dudes from Liquid Liquid trying to squeeze into a rickety lift and up to a house-party in some controlled rent loft in Manhattan circa 1979. This is what happens after:

Skinny hip urchins as they are, their weight is too much for this relic from the post-war times to carry, electric forces are summoned from the motor and through a taut wire which pulls upwards, stops, keeps pulling, stops again in between floors, picture the  master of the exalted drone vortex crammed against a streetgang of African Riddim kids, the creaking of the wire echoes in the elevator shaft, one heartbeat, *snap*

And down plunges the box with a rain of sparkles on its wake, like a Soviet bloc-manufactured delorean, inside the wormhole somewhere in between claustrophobic frustration and a legendary tragedy, and out…

…into a Brighton basement two months ago or less, where some crazy kids are contorting to Cold Pumas’ metronomic dance grind. Branca wipes some dust off his shoulders and lights up a cigarette with a smile of approval, the future is going to be all right.

I was there, I saw it.

Cold Pumas- Tropical Guilt

Tropical Guilt is included in a Paradise Vendor/Italian Beach Babes comp which comes out on the 1st of March. It includes songs by Teen Sheiks, La La Vasquez, Male Bonding, Fair Ohs, Graffiti Island and Plug amongst others. It is the perfect snapshot of everything that is cool and right with the new DIY wave of whatever DIY wave scene which Alan McGee was ranting about in the Guardian the other day. I already pre-ordered mine, and so should you.

Trash Kit are the last addition to the collection of wonders hanging from the walls of the pristine museum of good stuff past which a pegasus of beautiful purpose gallops, destination Epsilon. Gotta love Upset the Rhythm.

Theirs is a cure for the teenage blues. This jangly romp compresses time so that 2 minutes fit everything that is unselfconsciously cool about post-punk music- Pulsallama’s percussive mayhem and the Modettes’ explosion of unbridled joy, UT’s sassy rough around the edges soul and Red Transistor’s rodeo gallop, all of these are stitched together with invisible seams in a demonstration of verve and skill that can’t be learned at school, you either have it or you don’t. Trash Kit most definitely do.

Trash Kit- Cadets

Cadets is included in their self/titled album, which shall come out in March.

labels >> Cold Pumas, Trash Kit, xxjfg

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Monday, February 8, 2010  12:05 am 

A blade run for your money

Patience, patience dear reader, there are so many things you could do in 20 minutes, you could capture the secrets of the Zeitgeist in your feeble fist, like an ephemeral firefly whose wings are loaded with the power of the now, indeed, you could skim the surf bubbling at the top of the wave before precipitating into the oblivion of the forgotten.

Or you could stay with me, sit in that noble chair over there and listen to Year After (Entering Into Nothing) with the utmost concentration, for the 20 minutes that it lasts, watch layer after layer of beautiful freeform cha-boogie melody and rhythm mingling in the air like specks of diamond dust, sinuous tributaries converging into a golden river which is a piano which is the beginning of dawn, that moment when, through an uncanny alchemy, the darkest night breaks into day.

Because it is then when the music bursts with the utopian zest of the Boredoms at the apex of their psychedelic glory. This is the progressive answer to Juan MacLean’s Happy House, and the song that Lindstrom and Prins Thomas didn’t have space to fit into their last album. It is incredible.

Have patience, it will be worth it.

Iblis Kotor- Year After (Entering Into Nothing) (feat. Anes Guo)

Iblis Kotor’s Year After (Entering Into Nothing) is included in the latest release by Indonesia’s most awesome Space Rec.

O Brassica, through which deft exercise of the dark arts do you tap into the ebbing and flowing recesses of 20Jazzfunkgreats dark imagination? You have invaded our nights with invisible terrors, feline eyes glaring from the murky space beyond a door ajar, you have transformed our Cold Pumas into satanic titans lashing in the corridors of a concrete bunker, what now, we ask?

Well, you speed out the tempo and quote Goblin at their coke-addled most euphoric best, Discocross rather than Suspiria, you have produced an undead synth-boogie anthem for mysterious cat-people to breakdance to in the back alleys of the decaying metropolis, and a candidate for the soundtrack for Marathon Man if it had been directed by John Carpenter, we surrender, what next, what next?

Brassica- Venom Season

Venom Season is included in a record soon to be released by Nocturnes.

And as promised, here you have the mixtape that Teeth of the Sea have put together for us in order to celebrate the launch of Hypnoticon Viva, their new 12”. I am listening to the record  (which you can, for example, fetch here), 2 minutes into the title track and a simmering halo of progressive power has already started to take form around the turntable, unspeakable forces peek from the other side. What can I say that Julian Cope hasn’t?

Check out the mixtape: Fly like Jodorowsky, Kick like Peckinpah. That’s the way it’s done.

Teeth of the Sea 20JFG mixtape

0.Angry Bob: Intro
1. Eroc: Greenhouse Effect
2.Oneida: All Arounder
3.Dirty Filthy Mudd: Forest Of Black
4.Big Business:Another Fourth of July…Ruined
5.Skyramps:Flight Simulator
6.Bongwater:Nick Cave Dolls
7.This Heat: S.P.Q.R.
8.Venus Gang: Cosmic Daddy
9.Reichmann: Wunderbarr
10. Keith Fullerton Whitman: Schnee
11. Hygrades: In The Jungle
12.Crom: The Gathering
13. Medieval Steel: Medieval Steel
14.Underworld: To Heal

labels >> Brassica, Iblis Kotor, Teeth of the Sea, mixtape, xxjfg

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Friday, February 5, 2010  12:05 am 

Dreams of the Witch House

Parallel to the crowded streets runs a secret network of back alleys, cul-de-sacs and labyrinthine corridors  that would make you believe, upon stepping on them, but a few yards from the worldly bustle, that you have suddenly been transported to a different city altogether. Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft were masters of the ghost drift through which such spider-webs of empty omen can be discovered. Watch Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie roam the streets of Venice at night, haunted by the blur of a red mac, follow Lt. Kinderman down the staircase where Father Karras met his ghastly end, and you will understand what I am telling you.

These lonely places are where dark pacts are signed, where men whose faces are but a smudge of charcoal rendezvous for a few seconds to exchange envelopes sealed in wax and disappear in the shadows, where the prey runs from his hunter, mad with terror. These places have their own irresistible symphony, the echo of steps on distant stones, a window creaks opened by an invisible force and a trembling light spills out, pulsating feebly with a drone that reeks of things that are forbidden. It is the subtle change in the texture of the air which in a moment of foreboding makes the idle walker quicken his pace away, towards that which is garish and loud and hides no secrets.

Mater Suspiria Vision are no idle walkers, but wilful adepts of the wicked lore piling in the corners where the halls of this maze meet, they return and inside the shapeless bulk of their hood feline eyes blink with glee, sheets of velvet slide open and you are blinded by the liquid reflection of silver artefacts, torrents of ink tattooing the scroll pages of books that survived fire and purification, the golden Tiberius clinks for a moment shining like a grail of evil, you who stand in the boundary between that which is known and that which can be known but shouldn’t, surrender.

Mike Oldfield- Foreign Affair ((Mater Suspiria Vision Mindfuck Remix))

Now we hope someone does a ghost drone cover of Moonlight Shadow.

We met in the derelict playground buttressed by three cancerous towers, with cheap wine, sandwiches and a cassette player.

The light of the sun was such that the world stood perfectly defined, masses of ochre, rust, dying grass and sand, abandoned toys standing like esoteric totems in the background of a faded polaroid. We talked and we pushed the creaking wheel, we swung in the precarious swings and as the world slid up and down, a black bird crossed the blue sky in a straight line of technical precision. Music of our youth glared from the cassette and we talked as the sun continued its never-ending procession above, oblivious to the strange cycle of the colossal shadows of the towers surrounding us, chattering and smoking and nodding and remembering, as the afternoon began.

How can the sun shine in a way such that three shadows converge in a point which is the geometric centre of the triangle that they define?

But it happened, and so we found ourselves in the intersection of  these pillars of darkness, and our conversation died away as the sounds from the cassette player decomposed into a crackling pool of static from which an eerie melody surfaced, like a naked dryad emerging from a pool of water hidden deep in the forests. Emerald eyes, emerald eyes shining in the vague and pale silhouettes of children surrounding us in a circle, devoid of faces yet staring intensely like only children and the mad can, at us who had trespassed on their property,

It lasted for but a few moments, after which the three shadows parted ways and suddenly we were alone again, reality recovered its definition. Then we knew that bad things had happened in that playground.

We left in silence, and never again mentioned what had happened that day.

Pink Priest- Vultures Circling Weird Carcasses

Vultures Circling Weird Carcasses is included in ‘Honeysuckle’, Pink Priest’s new LP on LA Station Radar. The awesome artwork is by James Hines.

As a bonus, here you have the awesome mixtape that Pink Priest have put together for us. Enjoy!

Pink Priest XXJFG Mixtape

//Tracklist//

1 jim jones intro
2 beaters – fishage
3 da brat – give it 2 you (dj screw remix)
4 first nation – braided metal
5 pelt – will you pray for me
6 neil diamond – girl you’ll be a woman soon
7 salem – imasheet
8 fennesz – perfume for winter
9 popul vuh – devotion II
10 pan.american – is a problem to occupy generations
11 twista featuring lil boosie – fire
12 faust -untitled
13 the cure – a strange day
14 francois hardy – il est des choses (slowed down/fucked up by me)

And if you are not losing your shit in 13 Monsters on Saturday, and you are in London, you should go to Mucky Pup to celebrate the launch of Teeth of the Sea’s Hypnoticon 12′‘. It shall be blinding. We have a sizzling mixtape that they have put together for us coming up next week. Exalt!

labels >> Mater Suspiria Vision, Pink Priest, mixtape, xxjfg

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Wednesday, February 3, 2010  7:23 pm 

Parade of Enchanted Youth

Two of 20JFG’s favourite purveyors of deadpan disco return to our feral colony of off kilter pop. While the spectre of nu-disco continues its retrenchment the shoots established at its last beachhead continue to flourish, embedding themselves in future-pop experimentation while still drawing wistfully from a synthesised past.

Fan Death’s new EP plays across a broad spectrum of their growing fan base’s expectations: hi-nrg disco workouts at the start of the EP before venturing into more ambiguous but still hook laden spaces towards the end of the 5 tracks. Soon is the penultimate track on the EP, stripping back a rousing chorus, a saturated video but a reverie, this acts as a summer morning sequel to Chromatics’ eternal Night Drive. The constant bass rhythm and reverb drenched synth pings of dub run downhill to the sea. The clipped, resolute vocals remain but are joined by Joker’s legion of pitch-bended synth melodies and 20JFG’s secret obsession: horns in dance music. Blissful.

This is regretful sunrise music as the night once again fades from view and the makup-caked morning comes into focus.

Fan Death – Soon

We first posted a track by Appaloosa back in December 2007 and are delighted to herald their return with this freshly mastered delight. Where once there was delicate piano intros and souring heartfelt choruses over simple drum machines in a pure distillation of what is indeed soaring about dance music…here we have a baroque journey through Mellville’s Noir: Le Samouraï techno if the club singer had been Nico and Alan Delon’s character was played by Carl Craig.

That glorious kickdrum straight from Chicago, the ethereal 70s Parisian organ sound layered wonderfully under Anne-Laurie’s vampish, distant siren calls serve merely as preludes to the devastatingly disinterested chorus. A withering put down of distracted intent. Who dances with whom seems less at issue here than in what physical configuration the bodies will be arranged in against the black rocks of a shrouded island. This is nightmarish disco flirting with the tropes of lust and vigour while sucking the naive life from an endless parade of enchanted youth.

Appaloosa – You Will Never Hurt Me

labels >> Appaloosa, Fan Death

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010  12:05 am 

∆ RESURRECTION ∆

Dispatch from the land of whirlwinds:

‘I hope this message finds you well.
I just discovered this triad of songs so mind-melting,
I couldn’t resist writing about them.

I have chosen to arrange them all under the theme of “Resurrection”,
as I feel each one dances with this concept in some shape or form’

Taraka

Soft Circle-Feel The Light

To feel the light, you must first feel the darkness.
The sciatheric shadows you see dancing on the mirrored wall of the cave
that you have believed to be real are in fact are only outlines of the void.
Close your eyes; they are liars.
Deep warm drones emerge like primal mud from the center of the earth
and carry with them the voices of being born, their breath the boatmen
of hot steam and stench of life gurgling, their tongues shoots of gold
and spires of green impaling woven palms that cradle fountains of
fire—
Your forehead presses against the stone floor of this catoptric temple
and your arms lay before you outstretched and weak.
Soon the drones melt into the sound of your own voice screaming into
petrified tracheas how much you want to die so that you can feel the
ecstasy of being born again.
Yet this existence is a death re-lived constantly. It is a fossil of light.
To feel the light, you must be the darkness.
You are a shadow measuring time with the sun’s passage over your bones
whose memory will survive only through the cathartic reverberations of
its requiem, which is also a hymn of the living.
Your ears are two vessels of midnight.

(This track by Soft Circle is as yet unreleased)

Silk Flowers- Shadows of Daylight

The bleached skeleton of a landscape rendered petrified by light is
summoned through the foreboding bass-blood pulse of some odious beast
lurking ‘neath gilded synth skins stretched across the bones of dawn.
No smoke or mirrors can hide the slow ascent of your silhouette. In
the horrifying revelation that morning has come, another day has
passed, another revolution of our planet has been made towards the
sun, the needle toward the center of the record, and our own shadows
toward the cosmic axial gnomon, we discover that we carry the
leviathan of time within ourselves and lock it safe within the crafted
cages of pop, unleashed here by Brooklyn-based Silk Flowers in haunted
celebration of ritualized resurrection.

(You can find Shadows of Daylight in the Silk Flowers s/t 12” on Post-Present Medium)

A Thousand Cranes- I am the Phoenix

In the gnarled concrete proto-goth forests of Houston, Texas,
Travis Kerschen, the lone enigmatic figure of A Thousand Cranes and
shamanic brother of Tex (chieftain of Indian Jewelry) builds a sonic
nest in a rotted out tree using woven bits of hair, bones, and teeth
of mummified monks held together by strings spun by the most venomous
of synth spiders and shards of glass shattered from the window of
infinity. A chime rings, a skull drum pounds, and a hypnotic voice
leads you towards your ultimate spodomancy to greet the mythical bird
that rises and swoops in an eternal dance with its falconer, landing
sometimes on the wrists of Jandek and Gang Gang Dance and yet refusing
the raw meat offered by either outstretched hand. The fragility of
flight is consumed by fire.

(I am the Phoenix is as yet unreleased)

labels >> A Thousand Cranes, Silk Flowers, Soft Circle

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