Tuesday, June 30, 2009  12:05 am 

Will rock and shock the nation

We are celebrating Upset The Rhytm’s US tour with a bunch of glorious exclusives from artists that shall be participating in the jaunty shindig, beautiful stuff and much much love to Chris, Claire and Brian ‘tunes’ Miller. Remember:

This Friday (3rd July): New York at Monster Island Basement

Saturday 11th July: Los Angeles at the Smell

Sunday 12th of July: San Francisco at the LAB

Check here for more info, and for Christ’s sake, DON’T MISS OUT and TAKE MUCH LOVE TO THE SHOWS.

We begin with the High Places-related The Urxed. Gardening After Dark is like listening to Technotronic while playing hide n seek across blooming forests illuminated  by Japanese lanterns, stop for a second and you will see the pale ghosts of dead children beholding your game from the distance with a smile in their thin lips. Eerie fun is where it’s at, if you don’t believe me go and ask Calvin Johnson.

The Urxed- Gardening at Night

Lucky Dragon make deceivingly intense transcendentalist gamelan music which burrows a hole under your ribcage, slides across layers of flesh, fat and muscle without rupturing a single blood vessel and reach a cowering heart they proceed to massage with delicate and slender fingers. Moments of breathless warmth ensue. Aww.

Lucky Dragons- Open Melody

Former Ghosts are people from Xiu Xiu, This Song Is A Mess But So Am I, & Zola Jesus. The term haunted balladry gets hurled around with too much abandon in modern music journalism, but these people really do own it, and then some. If you have sat in your bedroom surrounded by the machinery of a world which continues operating furiously ignorant of your suffering, and then looked up to see a crack in the clouds through which a wisp of sun shines for a second, to make everything even more painful, then you know what I mean. Cheree Cheree.

Former Ghosts-Us and Now

Oh, btw we have opened one of those Twitter things. Follow us for brief insights into the hive mind of the 20JFG massive, and perhaps some goodies too.

labels >> Brian Miller, Former Ghosts, Lucky Dragons, The Urxed, Upset the Rhythm

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Monday, June 29, 2009  12:05 am 

Secret Tunnels Pt. 2 From Disco to: Chicago / Thee Mutant Beat Dance

Aw fuck this Vonnegut inspired Space-Time warp, everything is getting really confusing, I am tripping on grainy black and white images of Hugo dressed up in a tux for classy magick styles, sleight of hand, smoke and no mirrors, here comes another awesome Capablanca record out of abe lincoln’s stovepipe hat, just as he’s doing this right in front of me, my transponder buzzes, gee, it’s Hugo communicating from his class Excalibur star-busting red dwarf popping galanga cruiser, it sounds all crackly and shit. Apparently they have just had a black hole hit & run incident, the comms system of the ship has folded upon itself and all the crew are in a daze. Gotta flip the reality matrix like a bucket full of portals, find which one is the closest to their location and jump into it very fearless, because if I miss this party the rest of my personalities will never forgive me, absolute POWW.

Transmission sent to myself across aeons as  intercepted by the higher state of consciousness future black jazz panther massive

Or what happens when Nation´s Headquarters Underground mastermind Traxx enters an alliance with Shadow Commander Beau Wanzer for a space-time travel to the origins of Jack, realizing only too late the intrusion of a Spanish fly into the Quasar-propelled capsule. The result is a Mutant Beat creature on destination point, a shape-shifter entity with red acid injected eyes that would trance you in a daze of zombileptic beats and limb-breaking impulses with only looking at it.

From Disco to: Disco rapes Adonis in a tropical Berlin jungle, courtesy of external agent Dr. D. Clark. They call it The Future Soundof Yesterday and, while available in digital format, the real deal is the limited 500 vinyl copies with hand-silkscreened Mutant by monster artist himself Andreas Golder.

Mutant Beat Dance- In a Daze (Eric D. Clark’s Vocal Mix)

The secret cuban society Discos Capablanca made the wax replicas of the creature and had Clone deliver the raw substance .

As a bonus, just to keep you jacking like duracell bunnies in an electrified dancefloor, here you have Tyree mix of Acid Over, which is different from the one you might have heard in a rather awesome Soul Jazz comp a couple of years ago. This has ridiculously propulsive space helium propelled hi energy vocals about swinging and dancing and the usual stuff, as well as a beautifully pensive latin piano resting in its midst like a big eyed majestic deer licking its paws in a space between the pumped out crowds. Yeah, it’s crazy like that and if it doesn’t blow your mind then you need a fucking upgrade.

Tyree- Acid Over (Tyree’s Mix)

labels >> Capablanca, Hugo, Mutant Beat Dance, Tyree, house

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Thursday, June 25, 2009  1:00 am 

Theres Alot of Ruins in Mesopotamia

Our good friends at Italians Do It Better, those purveyors of impossibly chic twilight disco beats forever cruising the moonlit skies in a silver chariot pulled by mirrorball plated steeds and steered by a statuesque androidical replicant of the mythic Selene, committed to infusing the nighttime mists with their otherworldly brand of vampiric studio 54 vibes were recently awesome enough to bestow upon us a couple of shiny, shiny gems which we’d like to share with you faithful.

Hailing from France and soon to be releasing a 12″ on IDIB, Premier Rang have got that hypnotic melancholy/menace thing well and truly locked down, effortlessly cranking out slow flashing synth lines for survivors to drift motionless through gravity-free corridors, high above the Earth in a lonely space station where things have gone horribly wrong, just two tragic Leiji Matsumoto heroes, star blazers thrown into an existential Tarkovskian crisis silently listening to the mechanics of the ship, the analog gauges and dials creating an agitated electronic ambience that creeps into every corner of their floating tomb.

Premier Rang - Les Corps Humides

Mike Simonetti, the man himself, the one who oversees so much goodness, has crafted a rather unsurprisingly excellent B-52s edit, taking the already classic David Byrne collaboration and adding a downtown LCD Soundsystem skank to the hypnotic shrill harmonies of the bouffant ones, spilling a big bucket of disco worms over their dancing feet to wriggle between their toes, as they try to maintain an uncharacteristically edgy, fidget funk prowl while the bugs under their skin beg for them to zane out in their inimitable style.

The B-52s - Mess of A Tanian (Mike Simonetti Edit)

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In two weekends time (July 4th to be precise) one of your 20 Jazz Funk Great friends will be assuming their diamond encrusted, battle armoured So Bones guise to play an array of metal machine jams, autotune fantasias and ENCOM valley robo-pop bangers for the 17th International Amalgamation of Champions, which as ever is being hosted by the Real Gold guys. No doubt headliners Zomby and MJ Cole(!!!) will have dancers breaking limbs with ecstatic, sweaty enthusiasm. You can buy tickets in advance here. This one is going to be rammed.

labels >> B-52's, Permier Rang, italians do it better, mike simonetti

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009  12:05 am 

Blakk Majic Funk

Publicist is Sebastian Thomson, drum banger of such awesome indie disco staples as Weird War and Trans Am. This new incarnation takes the shimmering sexghost of disco and pummels it into a sleek panther that leaps from shadow to shadow briefly glimpsed in the reflection of disco lights on the effervescent surface of a flute of champagne.

On new 12″, “Momma”, old pal Ian Svenonious replaces the vocoder with his trademark sermon on the flaming mount yelps, he’s the reason that The Make-Up made us bark like spazz-dogs losing all our shit in the middle of the dancefloor, why Weird War sounded like funk beamed from the darkside of a nightmare war-torn planetoid and the reason why Nation of Ulysses sounded like a wall of laser guns tumbling in on us, smoking turret-end-first. B-side “Stone Age” sees Ian hard-wired and assimilated into wobbling synth trajectories, barking a tale of funked-up cavemen through a robotic loud-speaker across an undulating sea of perspex disco and the kind of kinetic drumming that makes all the items in your room come alive and bump to the sound before spontaneously exploding like glitter bombs.

Publicist - Stone Age

Walter Jones is the sound of Barry White if he’d of been a chrome-plated love demigod, handed down to the followers of Gaia from the acropolis of Mount Olympus with extensive knowledge of sine waves, synth programming and disco production - all allowing him to intoxicate with odes to mechanical romance and tales of love like it was a vast ocean of beautiful translucent light and not just a hot feeling in your stomach. “Living Without Your Love” from the DFA 12″, meanders on waves of synthesised froth, star constellation effects and honey-sweet vocals from a Nubian princess hailing from the same palace of residence of Christabelle Solale, Jocelyn Brown and the eternal disco spirit of Donna Summer.

Walter Jones - Living Without Your Love

Another disco warrior soon to be awarded with a DFA badge of honour is Altair Nouveau who’s “Space Fortress” 12″ will dock with motherships July 14th, regaling tales of adventures amid the glacial night skies of alien worlds. Altair’s remix of Ajello’s “2k Lightyears” paints images of life après sundown when the demonic spectres stir from the darkness in-between buildings, lured by the metronomic boom of the subterranean clubs and the green hued floodlights emanating from the smokey doors to such illicit places, each spidery synthesised effect representing the spindly black legs of the insectile spectres as they creep towards their goal.

Ajello - 2k Lightyears (Altair Nouveau Version)

labels >> Ajello, Altair Nouveau, Publicist, Walter Jones

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Monday, June 22, 2009  12:05 am 

Sister Electra’s ballad

It is the fate of some stars, when they die, to reincarnate here in this planet, or perhaps elsewhere, it’s not for us to say. A child of features faded like a watercolour blur was born the day Electra, brightest of the Seven Sisters, collapsed into itself in the absolute silence of the constellation of Taurus, breaking the heart of a million astronomers. She was predestined to shine upon this world but she didn’t want to, plagued by vivid dreams of eternal and peaceful stasis in a void compared to which the womb is but hellish cacophony. She hid in closets at night and dig holes in the ground, she held her breath underwater trying to capture, if only for a moment, that Nirvana which is to spin numb drawing a perfect pattern in the tapestry of the universe. All to no avail, frustration, rage and pain constant exits in the path to elusive balance. She didn’t know who she was deep inside and for that I don’t know if I should feel thankful, or full of pity. Either way, she passed by me in her erratic orbit across this chaotic world, these are the songs she left with me before disappearing into the distance.

It is music that crawls, rumbling blues basslines and drums bashed by Jaki Liebezeit’s brutalised lil’ brother, it is music that soars too, guitars shriek like buzzards scared off the carrion by a powerful lion, then wah wah trotting funky like the hind quarters of a manky Hyaena that knows something you don’t, gnarly shamanic lullabies hovering over the lo-fi distortion field like poisonous butterflies. It is environmental science seen from the point of view of the foot soldiers, it’s a fucking mess, we love it.

Vibes- Prisms of Fame

Taken from the Vibes 7” out in Not Not Fun, go to Gorilla vs Bear for another tune.

A millenial spider dwells in the cold interstices between the stars spinning a glimmering thread of liquid silver which ties the universe together, in Wolf Cub or Witch Hunt Pink Priest summon it from the cold nooks and crannies where it hides when the sun comes out, so it can envelop us in a beautiful shroud while we sleep, puncture our throat with jaws of pure black, and inject us with the sweetest poison.

Pink Priest- Wolf Cub or Witch Hunt

Married in Berdichev is the music of closing the door of a penumbrous alcobe most carefully, sitting in the unmade bed, tracing the lines in the unkempt sheets while staring at the intersection of two ochre walls where the shadows become the onset of Goya’s blurriest nightmare, a congerie of  shapes melding into each other acquiring solidity and volume, the cold dead and bloated body of a sultan of the revenants mouth agape and blind eyes deep set in the caves of its cranium steps outside of the portal you just created and spills upon the room to tell you the secrets from beyond and take you away because it’s against the rules to walk with the breathing when you know all of that. You squash it like an annoying bug and watch it retreat into the shadows with a wry smile, your magick is stronger.

Married in Berdichev- Feet in the Water

When you reach a certain depth under water, it is hard to tell where is up and where is down, if you aren’t careful and watch for the spirals of iridescent bubbles escalating into the blue you might find yourself diving into the abyss when you search for the surface. A Gal does precisely that, confident and brave, following a treasure map scribbled down by Kim Gordon many years ago, which identifies the position of a metal box lying lonely in the rocky surface, open its latch to find a sun shining inside it, a lovely hum pervades the absolute silence of the bottom of the sea, a vortex of radiance swirls to the beautiful melody of that guitar.

A Gal- Diver

This post goes with a big thanks to Bathetic Records, who have sent us a big box of goodness, cassette tapes, cassette tapes.

I have meant to tell you about this for quite a while, you might remember how we mentioned over Christmas that our most admired beat berserkers Foot Village were making some sound trinkets available for remixing by whoever thought he/she/it had what it takes, well, the outcomes are available here for you to check out & be blown away. There’s much to love, Anavan, IE or Death:Sentence Panda! to mention but a couple. We are going to have some cool stuff coming up in regards to Foot Village, and Upset the Rhythm too, very soon. So keep your ears peeled kids, good shit spreads.

And just so you can begin your week in a most psyched way, here you have an astonishing collection put together for us by that dark master of the synthetic drone, Gavin Russom. Watch him stepping for a moment from the dark belly of the machine to present us with a lovely collection of spiritual utterances, reverberating spells  & radiant esoterica. Enjoy!

Gavin Russom- 20JFG mix

Tracklist

labels >> A Gal, Married in Berdichev, Pink Priest, gavin russom, mixtape, vibes, xxjfg

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