Tuesday, May 20, 2008  12:02 am 

Niko and me down by Algonquin (a true story) Pt 2.

Where we put up a couple of songs that we think could have been nicely featured in the GTA IV epic OST, good shit.

The new quiet movement continues gathering momentum with the ‘Muting the Noise’ compilation, here you have some pearls of minimal/kosmische ambient gliding like ethereal kites between the glass-hearted titans that pierce the blackness of a metropolitan skyline, Innervision’s is Ame’s label so you know what to expect, an avalanche of lush synthetic clouds all of which are delightful, Tokyo Black Star’s Kagura, or the wheel of the Cosmos spinning pulled by the golden thread which a mysterious sorceress spins smiling is but an example, I would have expected Mr Jacobsen to listen to this in the radio of his old van, tuned to The Journey while driving around Liberty City at night, forever searching for a constellation shining in the sky like silver jewellery over black satin, or a solution to God’s ultimate differential equation.

All of this before Niko Bellic jacked his car and smashed his face in the pavement, sometimes life is harsh on old hippies.

Tokyo Black Star- Kagura

We keep up our love incandescent for top purveyors of italo disco/cosmic/spiritually powered french psychedelic synth disco music Cosmic Club Mastercuts, Decadance’s On and On (Dub) has enthralled me since I first listened to it in the third part of their glorious series, spirals of electroid romantic melancholy summoning ghosts dressed in porous pastel like those memories haunting poor Roland as he speeds down the garish avenues of Angolquin- a heart pumped on cocaine- and fractured by love- him turned into a cybernetic torpedo of red chasing suicidal after her shadow before being rammed by Niko as he escapes from 4 stars worth of coppers in a festival of mayhem which leaves a trail of carnage behind including Roland, burning in bittersweet delight inside the wreckage of his once proud sportscar, Decadance’s heavenly piano keeps playing in the midst of the inferno, taking him by the hand as he shuffles off this mortal coil with a tear in his eye and a smile in his mouth, for having gone through it all.

Decadance- On and On (dub)

The revival of cosmic rock, or funk-rock, or disco rock or whatever you want to call it, keeps growing strong as two of the best labels out there, Eskimo, and Dissident, put out references characterised by bad-ass shuffling disco beats and heavy guitar action, we think that the pumped nature of this music should make for a perfect climax after all the smooth stuff, and look forward to be blasted by them in sweaty underground dens all over the free world (London calling!).

We shall be getting down with Daniele Baldelli’s ‘Cosmic Disco? Cosmic Rock!’ soon, for now we leave you with Binary Chaffinch’s beast ‘Guitar Shaped Heart‘ out in Dissident, where Chrome Hoof’s drummer delivers a motherfucker with enough swagger to make the Baseball Furies recoil timid back into their dirty dens, this sounds like Jennifer Herrema chasing Rare Earth with a butcher knive, or Iggy Pop getting rhythm in Street Crazies, it also reminds us of those halcyon days before DFA79 went mastercraft (and fucking boring).

Hog Boss had this playing in his Harley as he tried an acrobatic manoeuvre which ended with bits of his mangled, badly tattooed body spilled across the length of Broker Bridge, and his soul doing the boogie in hell, another corpse, another Liberty City story.

Binary Chaffinch- Guitar Shaped Heart

labels >> Binary Chaffinch, Decadance, GTA IV, Tokyo Black Star