stay on my side tonight

At the turn of 2010, Pantha Du Prince released Black Noise, a stunningly sprawling record of processed  collages and haunting turns of sound that's still unraveling itself to me every time I tug at its many, many threads. This is to say: it's a daunting, intense album, but it isn't without its access points. Album highlight and single "Stick To My Side" is one such entry, with vocals from Panda Bear sufficiently swirling in the mix but discernable enough to be melancholy...and, yeah, a little uplifting. That's how Pandas do.

The video for "Stick To My Side" is the same-it's that final shot (I won't spoil it) that hits the heart and marrow of Black Noise-an album made from stretches of aloneness that make the not-alone that much more beautiful.

This remix from Walls (who will be releasing an album later in 2010 that will hopefully sound JUST LIKE THIS REMIX) comes on like a wave, but then chooses to bubble underneath and take the song's base components with it. Panda Bear's drowned, the song's percussive drive is drowned, but in the end it's the haze that remains. I fucking love this, but with a different part of my heart than I love the original.

Pantha Du Prince: Stick To My Side (Walls Version)

The entirety of Black Noise is a journey I'm still taking...which is to say, how do I feel about the whole album? Dunno. Haven't reached the bottom yet.

i change shapes just to rave in this place

I put Animal the album on my iPod to prep for today (oh god, it burnses us) and I genuinely did not expect what I got when I finally reached the final song, aka the titular (see, the word "tit" is in there, did you notice that?) track. She did it. She fucking surprised me.

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you're not the first one i've failed

Lali Puna are one of those bands that I can never quite recover from listening to. I fell into them around the time of Faking The Books, a brilliantly heartbreaking album of futureterrorheartbreak that hit emotionally and viscerally in a way that I think is what some mean when they talk about, say, Ok Computer being a perfect record about the same topics and inspiring the same reaction. 

They have a new record coming out in April, Our Inventions. And (thankfully, blissfully) their textured, layered, snow-falling-on-exposed-anxiety sound remains entirely intact.

Lali Puna: "Everything Is Always"

"Everything Is Always" isn't the album's single-I honestly don't know/care what is. "Everything Is Always" IS a tender beating heart, filled with the sort of half-murmurs and second glances that Lali Puna use to counterbalance how extremely mechanical their gauzy, willowly electropop is. Lali Puna's music is about the moment right after a mistake, the sound of realizing the right choice wasn't the one made. Maybe that's the future they're afraid of-not one that's mechanical, but one that's lived in a stasis of heartbreak.

"You're not the first one I've failed", the song goes. At least, I think it does. And if that's what I hear? So be it-because it all falls apart from there.

we backed up showed you the ropes

The Ropes were the first New York band I discovered and loved entirely on my own after moving to NY in March, without anyone pointing me to them, and I quickly became obsessed with their dark, witty, fuzzy, smarmy & literate take on...what? No-wave? Shamble pop? Jangle rock? Garage-top? Doesn't matter, they're smart and they'll punch you, and if you're smart you'll let them.

They're playing the soldout launch party at Santos this Weds Feb 10 (which you can win tickets to here), and one of my live favorites of theirs that stands out equally in studio recording is "Be My Gun".

The Ropes: Be My Gun

It's the fucking fuzz as the song blows up into that plea-"listen/listen/here's a warning"-god, this is a great fucking song. The Ropes recently popped out a new EP and single, and all of their music is available for consumption at their site.

Catch The Ropes at our party at Santos Party House Weds, Feb 10, 7pm.

Welcome to the Daouhaus: A Conversation with Vanessa Daou, by Collin Kelley

After Atlanta-based journalist, poet and novelist Collin Kelley did a reading for an event I'd assembled at The Tank performing art space which was later blogged about by Vanessa Daou, a name I've known from Danny Tenaglia DJ sets, Collin approached me about doing an interview with her for soldout. Here it is: "Welcome To The Daouhaus".

Welcome to the Daouhaus: A Conversation with Vanessa Daou

by Collin Kelley

Jazz. Pop. Trip-hop. House. Spoken word. Vanessa Daou has put her unmistakable voice to all these genres, but many clubbers also know her as a dance icon thanks to floor-fillers like “Surrender Yourself,” “Near the Black Forest,” “Two to Tango” and “A Little Bit of Pain.” From the beginning of her career with former husband/producer Peter Daou as part of The Daou to her solo success in the ‘90s, Daou has been a favorite with DJs and remixers, especially Danny Tenaglia.

              Coming off the success of her latest album, Joe Sent Me, Twisted Records has just released a compilation called Daouhaus: The Classic Remixes. Seven of Tenaglia’s reinventions are here, alongside deep grooves by David Morales, Olive and Mood II Swing. The album opens with the 1992, fourteen-minute opus that is “Surrender Yourself,” which rocketed to the top of the Billboard Dance chart and heralded a new direction for club music, bringing it from the underground to the mainstream. Olive (you remember them from the massive hit “You’re Not Alone”) turns the slinky “Near the Black Forest” (from Zipless, Daou’s solo debut based on the poetry of Erica Jong) and turns it into a heavy house groove with hints of drum-and-bass. Tenaglia’s Twilo Mix of “Two to Tango” is midnight rave-tastic.

              In this exclusive interview, Daou offers up a history of her early foray into the club scene and how handing over her songs to DJs for reinterpretation is an intoxicating kind of freedom.

 

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