Crossover are truly, madly, deeply within a world of their own. But all the better for it as, judging by the way the real world is going, imaginary realms are totally where its at. They sat awkwardly within the pneumatic techno and acid-house landscapes of International Deejay Gigolos with neon pentagrams etched across their alien hearts. They released “Fantasmo” in 2OO1 and made all the other Electroclash posers look like the amateurs that they clearly were. I saw them play that mad shit live in London one time; Dez wrapped phone wire around himself and headbutted his drum pads to the beat while Verona channeled the Love Goddess of Phobos and hypnotised us mere mortals with her otherworldly ways. Then came the criminally overlooked “Cryptic And Dire Sallow Faced Hoods Blast Off Into Oblivion”, born from the unholy union of synth and Venusian mecha-snake with help from Carlo Penisi, of Goblin.

We aren’t too sure whats happening with the Gigolos partnership nowadays, I guess its defunkt, but who cares when they are releasing CDR’s by themselves! And when they are as good as the new one its time to do the Satanic jig to its drumbeats and pitch-dark synth cackles!

Crossover – Night Hawks

If they ever make a film of Black Hole (which I sincerely hope they don’t), ‘Night Hawks’ needs to feature on the soundtrack, with its cloaked figure shifting through trees in the moonlight sensibilities. Those Night Hawks sound nasty and parasitic but in a cool way, when danger can sometimes be fun, y’know, like fighting a bear or stealing dinosaur eggs. Either way its the menacing drum pounding of Pagan troll parties deep in the woods that you can faintly hear from your bedroom window.

Order the CDR from the Crossover myspace page.

Back now to the icey chill of the Chromatics campfire underneath a canopy of icicle covered palm-trees, lit by the frozen blue Moon. A new CDR is being forged in the furnaces of Italians Do It Better and here is the title track:

Chromatics – Night Drive

Chromatics go pop! In their own special ways of course, this isn’t ex-Sugababes sampling The Human League and mentioning Prince a couple of times in the chorus, this is the dukes of 2O12 apocalypse disco riding through your city in the small hours of the nite, windows down, collars up.

‘Night Drive’ is a close cousin of ‘In The City’, just more urgent and yet a little more whimsical with the effortless glimmering vocals of Ruth, Princess of Neptune. If ‘In The City’ was a cruise through the concrete metropolis, then ‘Night Drive’ is the journey through star-lit country roads back to the castle.

With this in mind, lets go try and expand our minds and listen to some pop music for a change, see what happens yeh?

San Serac – Love Tactics

So we roll from the Fulton drums to, Bowie’s soulboy rhyme in one smooth piece of passionate outburst from the otherwise coolly calm 80s boy.

‘ardcore 88 distorted keyboard stabs with the high pitch chorus vocal take this into that magical John Pugh land, and you cannot help wishing there was something as sexy played with by a full band on the last !!! album, but I guess we will all have to wait for Freeblood (out soon on our good brother’s ACTH Records upstart new label) to hear the real freakazoid stuff.

San Serac may sound like he’s taking the piss sometimes, but when he gets it right it’s as good as when Rick James cries ‘Now watch me’ and pulls out his amazing funk weapon that all the ladies love.

The album, Professional, is out now with a front cover we know xxjfsteve will love on Frog Man Jake records, and its pop!

Urg… ok now I feel like I’ve eaten too many chocolate eggs for Easter.

Drunken conversations with our good friends lead us onto the nature of pop and such, but in the end we decided that 20jfg pop was Animal Collective, Les Georges, Liars, Chromatics/Glass Candy and Gay Against You, The Boredoms and all the stuff you, dear reader, know and love. In the places we are lucky enough to play records these are all pop-ular, and we are lucky fuckers who thank the lord that it is so.

The Boredoms may be inspired by lots of music, but there has never been an actual moment where I have been able to say – fuck, they stole that completely – until now. DJ Rick on his inspirational radio show Art For Spastics played a Mekons single I never heard before, which even made Dan thedoclub scream ‘Fuck me, it’s the Boredoms’. Well not quite, but its legendary good shit and worth sharing.

The Mekons – Where Were You?

Would this fit in with ldn as an example of the new popular English accent? Or is it just a drunk tail of love by some punk with a heart. It’s the kind of incident that makes you bitter enough to write Part Time Punks, but we all know the girl was Brix and she ran off with Mark who was far more drunk and charming. If it makes you feel any better fella, he sacked her so don’t sweat it.

The Mekons post is dedicated to all those north of the border and lucky enough to be able to buy cheesecake in Mono.

Stuff

20JFG misanthropic nerds will be making a rare London appearance this Saturday 28th to wreck the Barfly on the Kill ‘em All night hosted by the lovely Filthy Dukes. Mighty Chaddtoddbruce coming up yo. Expect the usual dumb styles- American trouble&bass music, acid shitstorm, boom bap hip hop and crippling noise for the win. Yarr.