Under a blue moon almost imperceptibly hanging in a brilliant blue sky, on a patch or golden grass we find the listener seated in contemplation. Stretched out before them they casually observe the vast network of intertwining roads that lattice the valleys and hills that stretch towards the screaming black horizon. Each road, holding a stream of endless possibility. The choice seems impossible, the journey through that vast matrix of options infinitely terrifying. And so the listener rests back into their position on top and between the blades of sun bleached grass, overwhelmed and not a little tired.

The sun descends, abandoning the sky to the omnipresent moon and bathing the land in an amber glow not unlike backlit 70s Horror Films – but alas this is a world that has never seen a reel of 16mm. This is a world of monumental architecture and deserted plains. Tiny figures dwarfed by the elemental forces that play out under the gentle hand of cosmological physics. A world being readied for the coming of the night.

The listener commands their body to rise and forces their legs down the third path to the left as the last rays of sunlight pick out the bell tower up ahead. As the sun drops lower the sky fades away into a pulsating disco of stars (the preferred collective noun in these parts). Footsteps counting out time as bells ring in the distant towers. Water from seas beyond the mountains lapping in echo off the purple sheets of rock. From out of the last golden flecks of the clouds a cyclopean suit emerges for a faceless instant from the point the sky meets the land. And it is gone.

The journey continues. This path seems marked by a procession of totems worshipping Teutonic gods. The path a few hundred meters to the right is lined with ancient oaks. The path on the left is measured in feet and glistens as the moonlight glances off the steel and brushes the Detroit concrete. Yet this path draws the wayward listener back with its chanting sirens, for it is they that command the bells. They that form the nucleus of the arpegiators. They that draw the listener onwards and inwards.

Thee Four Horsemen bring their exquisite remixing skills to bear on another member of the XXJFG extended family. Allez-Allez’s Hideous Racket gets transported to the shores of Brighton Hove (actually) to be re-recorded as a vast diagram, accurately describing the inner workings of the metronymic machines that powered our 70s overlords. A song so sprawling, so eager to flirt with ascension, that only four paragraphs of sub-Borges metaphor could even attempt to describe it.

This is big.

Allez-Allez – Hideous Racket (Thee Four Horsemen Remix)

This remix appears on Allez-Allez‘s forthcoming remix EP on RVNG. Check it out along with the video for Weird Science below.

Inch of Air begins in a helicopter, clacking wooden rotors holding it aloft, skimming over a midnight Michael Mann cityscape where a well enunciated narrator ripped from Severed Heads’ Dead Eyes Opened guides us through end-of-movie waves of synth chords.

Attention held in a vice by the growl of Sam Herring’s steadfast invitation to call on him. For when he says he’ll be there always it’s a monolithic promise not a threat. A rock of a persona, shooting up like a skyscraper between the delicate percussion and rolling organ waves.   Synth stabs skipping like stones across the sky, spotlights struggling to reveal the depth of sincerity burning behind the glorious, glorious reprise.

This, too, is big.

Future Islands – Inch Of Dust

Inch of Dust is taken from Future Islands‘ In Evening Air out on Thrill Jockey right now.

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20JFG once again journey to the big city to occupy The Old Blue Last between the hours of 8-1:30 on Saturday (13th). Your two Brighton scribes will be joined by our beloved brother from Berlin, Genuine Guy.  It’s free.  Come and say “hi”.
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Pretty obvious full disclosure: one of the founder members of XXJFG is also a founder member of Thee Four Horsemen and we love him and them dearly.

Sam Allez Allez – 2OJFG Mix 2008

Sons & Daughters – This Gift (Sam’s Allez-Allez Remix)
Harmonia – Dino
D.A.F. – Der Mussolini (Conny Plank Mix)
Yo La Tengo – Sugercube
Glenn Branca – Light Field (In Consonance)
Animal Collective – Chores
High Places – Head Spins
Guided By Voices – My Valuable Hunting Knife
Spoonich – Laserdance
Luke Vibert & Jean Jacques Perrey – Moog Acid (Jackson Mix)
DHS – House of God ($50 Mix)
Menomena – Wet and Rusting
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R&B instrumentals can be wonderful things, sometimes forcing all the haters out there who can’t see beyond the often diamond encrusted lovelorn musings that adorn so many of these tracks, to admit defeat and accept that on occasion the sounds of Kiss FM can be some of the most adventurous and insanely odd sounds around. We’ve seen robo-siren Cassie slink her way across an ominous soundscape of icy Chromatics disco remixed by Timbaland, Brandy cry chrome tears over a metal-machine android jam that would be perfect for sound tracking a romantic moment between the 2008 Treer Saltair cars from Southland Tales, and Destiny’s Child leading a future-funk clockwork marching band while maximalist synth sirens shoot off into the sky like digital fireworks that explode in to an ocean of sine waves. And, so now we celebrate another piece of off kilter pop lunacy in the form of this unreleased gem.

Usher – Dat Girl Right There (Instrumental)

When Amerie collaborator Rich Harrison was concocting this sonic juggernaut for Usher I can only imagine he did so under the influence of Proteus, abused by wires with lives of their own, super computers plugged into his brain reformatting his trademark cymbal abusing go-go sound into something a psychotic robot orchestra might come up with, transforming the organic into the synthetic.

In it’s original incarnation Usher, seemingly consumed with the kind of manic eyed lust that courses through the veins like poison and makes sane men involuntarily claw at their own chests until they draw blood, delivered a suitably hyped up performance bouncing off the walls of a pressure chamber, trapped in a giant, third dimension variant of Pong desperately trying to avoid a barrage of elastic orbs ricocheting back and forth, whilst Ludacris slid up to play the role of his sidekick sexbot and slowly malfunctioned in the corner, his voice-box disintegrating into the ether as it fought to be heard over the colossus. Stripped of the voices, the barely controlled chaos theory that seems to inform much of this space age banger reinforces that the avant-garde can be gold plated too.

Being that this is a Bobby Orlando production, naturally this is hi-NRG, but this is hi-NRG that’s been stripped of it’s happy, jubilant “hi” and has instead been inserted with an unhealthy dose of black hearted dancefloor psychosis. Of course we’re quite partial to hearing disco queens being dragged down that dark alley behind Studio 54 by cloaked and veiled faceless men only to emerge with ruby red lipstick smudged across their face and strange occult symbols brandished into their hands, so this can only really be a thing of beauty.

Bobby O cranks up the tension between a pair of warring lovers whose once existing affection for one another has completely turned to bones, and unwittingly creates the glitzy, sequin soaked, technotronic murder ballad that Rufus and Chaka probably should have made at some point, which feels like the oral equivalent of biting down on a juicy piece of candy only to discover a few moments later that a stream of blood has begun to flow from your mouth, at which point you spit out the razor-blade.

One-Two-Three – Another Knife In My Back (12″ Mix)

As this nasty, little hate-fuck takes place beneath darkening rainbow strobes, black glitter bombs explode, while a snowstorm of broken mirror ball shards, like razor-sharp snowflakes descends in perpetual slow motion around the desperate couple engaged in their toxic tango, making tiny incisions as they brush past naked skin, creating the kind of twisted Giallo disco that Argento would be proud of.

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Friend and occasional collaborator Sam of ultimate mixtape blog Allez-Allez has been kind enough to bestow upon us a sweet mix made by himself, check it out:

Sam Allez Allez – 2OJFG Mix 2008

Sons & Daughters – This Gift (Sam’s Allez-Allez Remix)
Harmonia – Dino
D.A.F. – Der Mussolini (Conny Plank Mix)
Yo La Tengo – Sugercube
Glenn Branca – Light Field (In Consonance)
Animal Collective – Chores
High Places – Head Spins
Guided By Voices – My Valuable Hunting Knife
Spoonich – Laserdance
Luke Vibert & Jean Jacques Perrey – Moog Acid (Jackson Mix)
DHS – House of God ($50 Mix)
Menomena – Wet and Rusting
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Tonight: If in Brighton.

Early on- Lilo Feast at the Penthouse, Chadtoddbruce is handling the biz and one of the 20JFg 1s shall be bringing a few records to contribute.

After: It Came from the Sea, Brighton’s main alt.disco comes back full strength at the Water Margin: you know the score= you don’t know the score. Damaged dance music and mutant pop we shall dance to under the fierce radioactive blast of Nikon & Kickie fearless attitude & mighty killer strobe.

Eskimo, in the bleary eyes of 20JFG and its cohorts, is leaping over many other labels in terms of quality and shear taste. Not only have they bought us the stratospherical pastel awesomeness of Aeroplane and the resonating obsidian pyramid stones of Simone Fedi, but now they collect together a Best Of from seminal Afro-Berlinian rhythm heirarchy known as Allez Allez. It hits in May and comes complete with Optimo’s riot-inducing remix of ‘She’s Stirring Up’, Quiet Village’s malevolent Victorian Mars expedition of ‘African Queen’ and Aeroplane’s staggered Herculean house remix of ‘Allez Allez’.

‘Wrap Your Legs (Around Your Head)’ features on the ‘Valley Of The Kings’ 12″ that hails from 1982′s ‘Promises’ album. It features vocals by Sarah Osbourne, the original vocalist who left, causing it to all go a bit pear shaped, and went on to provide the iconic vocals for Heaven 17′s ‘Temptation’.

Allez Allez – Wrap Your Legs (Around Your Head)

Allez Allez shoot forth from a shadowy Berlin basement and sear holes in the atmosphere of planet Disco, raining epic elasticated comet trails of funk based dance music all over, thus pre-empting chicago house and cementing themselves as main influences and much beloved favourites on Optimo’s playlists, Lindstrom’s alien-afro repetitive beat novels and virtually anyone associated with the DFA. Wrap Your Legs incorporates all the best parts of Ian Dury’s block-headed cockney wide-boy chant vocals, ESG’s angulated primary coloured wicker basket freak rhythms of ‘Come Away With…’ and James Chance’s symbiot brass horns, firing the resulting concoction out of a voodoo totem cannon from the mouth of Liquid Liquid’s Cavern. As with all these types of awesome early 80′s synth-shunning bands, its all about the drums and how they coil up and around the vibrating bass strings and run up and down the shimmering platform created by the constant hi-hat. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, they just re-release ‘em.

What we do get is Joshua and Eric of production duo Brothers remix of Telepathe.

Telepathe – Chromes On It (Tan Lines rmx)

Like the world music setting on your casio with extra mobile phone interference Brothers do the opposite of DFA‘s mega MIA Paper Planes remix turning the lovely twee psyche Telepathe into your local bloc party garage band Althea and Donna. Can we get Brothers a production job on the next Tom Tom Club record please? And what is it with the casio keyboard horns these days?

While we are on the topic of Althea and Donna and legendary producer Joe Gibbs, it seems a perfect time to for the bonus track by that sharp dressed man, Trinity.

Trinity – Three piece suit

Derived from the Alton Ellis tune I’m Still In Love and using the time honoured tradition of a soundsystem riddim doing the rounds of various toasters this Joe Gibbs and Trinity version provided the basis for the unlikely uk number one by Althea and Donna, which i have in my head for some reason Pete Waterman was responsible for bringing to and releasing in the uk. If anyone can give us more information on this please do so in the comments box below.

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xxjfg

20Jazzfunkgreats one visited the Duke of York’s on Saturday Night to see Daft Punk’s Electroma. It is a word-less tale about two robots (them wearing those fancy helmets and nicely embroidered leather jackets) searching for humanity, achieving it very imperfectly, surrendering, dying (?). Although some of the people I went with found it boring/frustrating/fell asleep I really enjoyed it, but then I was kind of drunk (had been out for the whole day sitting in the Park and stuff yeah?) and got lost, in the best of ways, inside the infinite ochre landscapes our mechanical heroes, ever so loyal to each other, cris cross looking for something that apparently can only be found in the furnace of oblivion, I didn’t know fire could burn that way.

The soundtrack fits beautifully with the Paris Texas v THX 1138 (maybe Vanishing Point through the key-hole) vibe of the film, like a rug of brown clouds reflecting the earth of the desert in the mirror of the sky, very nice.

Todd Rundgren- International Feel

Todd Rundgren kickstarts the film with the sort of epic horizontal glam take off one would expect from silvery leather clad robots driving a black Cadillac el Dorado towards Humanity, beyond the Event Horizon barrier in an impossible trip which is nevertheless worth taking.

You know how we have been sort of sceptic about the whole coronation of the Ed Banger sound as the greatest thing to happen to dance music since the first burp of baby Roland TB303, or the music scene that got the indie kids dancing for the erm, 15th time, well, yeah, we have been, but credit where credit’s due, the soundtrack for SteaK composed by Sebastian Tellier, SebastiAn and Mr. Oizo (who also directs the film) contains a handful of lovely pieces including this arresting arpeggiated robo-concertina which seems to quote Vitalic’s Polkamatic, we dedicate it to all the Runaway Aibos out there.

Sebastian Tellier & Mr Oizo- Exploites

Follow it up ‘Camera’s Ready prepare to flash’ style with one track that hasn’t been used for an OST quite yet, but then it’s difficult to raise funds to shoot a psychedelic Western whose climax consists of Clint Eastwood having a showdown with Lee Van Cleef’s during a Transilvanian Walpurgisnacht rave. We think it’s a total winner, but the money men don’t seem to trust the psychic powers of our casting team…

Supermayer- Two of Us

Supermayer (i.e. Aksel Schaufler of Superpitcher fame and god of minimalism Michael Mayer) trance the Morricone in Two of Us, crossover minimal // waves of euphoria wash over your body // murderous crescendo dynamics, anticipates Supermayer’s Save the World & should detonate parties all over the summer like say this Kompakt one IN LONDON ON THE 8th THIS IS TOMORROW which our favouritest Allez Allez be putting on, check out that hot Matias Aguayo mix too…

Now, be there & be getting down, tix here.

And let us close with a little post-scriptum, it is with great sadness that we heard, on Sunday night, of Lee Hazlewood’s passing away.

In his obituary in the Guardian , he is quoted as saying ‘Thank God for kids that love obscure things! I never thought anyone would pay attention to those records, and it’s a good feeling. It makes me feel like I really did get to do what I wanted to do‘.

Indeed, thank god for Lee Hazlewood. Now here you have one of the few guys I considered a hero, a big regret I have is not having attended his Brighton gig when he came over a few years ago, oh well, Lee would understand, he taught us a couple of things about regret, didn’t he?

Lee Hazlewood- My Baby Cried all Night Long

He took the archetypical figure of the stranger in a strange town, who perhaps plays around, but then in doing so is only playing himself, trying to keep the silence away, and injected it with that nagging existential suspicion, you know, that some are born to live and die alone, feeling this doesn’t make it any less important to keep trying to be proved wrong, even if it has to be one night at a time.

Jason Molina put it better than we ever could

I’ve been riding with the ghost
I’ve been doing whatever he told me
I’ve been looking door to door to see
If there was someone who’d hold me
I never met a single one who didn’t see through me
None of them could love me if they thought they might lose me

All of this while wisecracking all the way to the grave like someone who knew how to cut deals, fix motors and find stolen cattle, a husky lived & loved in voice, aproaching town from the desert drenched in that reverb & twang Phil Spector ended up nicking, Lee ruled and we’ll miss being in the same world as him, yet we’re sure he shuffled into the darkness with a smile in his dry lips, tickling a grey moustache, so it goes.

Lee Hazlewood- Easy and Me