Under The Influence

What a surprise, another great album from Berlin. Apparently these guys are one of Thom York's favourite. He sings a track with them on this one.

Hyper Hyper is a shout out to the great electro artists of the past (and you can hear the influence in there). It even sounds like ... oh damn, what's it called? That classic dance track I can't remember right now but I always get confused with 3 Drives.

There are lots of other interesting collaborations going on here. Maximo Park and Apparat make an appearance, as do Puppetmastaz, Berlin's famous animal puppet faced hip-hop group. I'm not sure who Siriusmo is, but the track they help out on, Déboutonner, is definitely a standout piece.

Don't Wait For Tom caught my interest straight away when it was played to me. It's so obviously a nod to Tom Waits. From the very first clatter everything about it is Tom Waits. Actually, I found that the rest of the album makes for better listening.

It's a bit novelty humour sounding in parts. I prefer the sweeter numbers myself - Karin Bergquist has a lovely voice. Nothing Is Innocent does it for me. Check out Trouble though, it's a catchy number.

Some bits of it reminded me of a later Morcheba sound. Jim White too. Hey, didn't they collaborate at some point? Hmmm, that's strange.

Good stuff. The kind of dirty noise you want to be blearing while you're playing up at the sort of late night parties your mother told you never to go to. It's really dark - almost a tad sinister in places. Beautiful.

Their cover of White Horse is definitely going into my record bag. It's like the original, but with filthy filthy bass. High-Rise is going in the bag too for that matter. The songs seem to mellow out a bit towards the end of the album - then War Against Sleep brings things back to where they should be.

Got a funny desire to get mashed up at a dance party now.

Hey, it's Chromeo but cooler! Far cooler. To be fair I've only ever listened to Needy Girl but somehow this feels slicker. I guess the Chromeo comparison really comes from the over the top use of vocoderesk sounds. No, actually, the synth sounds are pretty similar too. This is much lighter and much funkier. It's pure dance goodness.

Where to start? It seems that every track is a disco-pop masterpiece. There are downbeat numbers but it's the dancer tracks that tickle my fancy. Arcade Love and Sturdy are the ones that are really doing it for me presently.

Oh yes, and it's called IV because every single song is exactly 4 minutes long. Go figure.

It's pretty hard to classify this stuff. I purchased a couple of tracks from their singles Center Stage and Sweat after one of the American lasses I met at the Dan Deacon gig pointed me their way. I think of it as a kind of cliché retrospective look at 90s dance music with all the emphasis on having fun. You remember those pianos right? They also incorporate more recent elements from electro music.

At about 3:40 Center Stage descends into an acid rave mashup... before it forgets itself again and slips into distorted digital noise.

They haven't really released a whole lot yet but they're definitely one to watch out for over the next year. I'm picturing one of their live gigs as a place to be.

In my mind these guys are another Nextmen or Unabombers; a DJing duo that put great lesser known tunes that make you want to dance before everything else. I accidently caught them at The Big Chill in 2005 and really loved what I heard. I think they Manchester based too.

They definitely swing more towards the soul / funky / disco side of the dance floor. The mixing is really simple - in fact, it's not really mixing at all, blending would be a better term. It's primarily a showcase of good tunes.

I've only heard a couple (consistently showing my ignorance, eh?) of the songs on here before (Word Up and Low Rider), though not these versions. Of course they're all killer. The music itself sounds like good old funk/soul stuff - but it can't possibly be. I need to do a bit of digging but I think some of these songs must be from the last couple of years (Lindstrom & Prins Thomas' Ballerina for example).

Yes yes, I have some friends that are about to find out they've been missing this all their lives.

For some reason I randomly downloaded three tracks off this album - I have no idea why (maybe I was low in emusic credits at the time). The three I picked all seem to be girl, or at least girl fronted, electro groups. And that's three more super cool sounding electro girl groups to investigate.

Dragonette sound like an electrofied Cardigans vs Waitresses. Robots in Disguise's Turn It Up is an expression of their love for their influences, from Teaches Of Peaches to The Smiths and Ping Pong Bitches' Rock Ya Body sounds like one of the better Britney productions.

After listening again I'm not sure which track I like most. They're all quite different and all very strong. Strong enough that I'm heading back to emusic to buy the rest of the album.

You get a wonderful cover of George McCrae's I Get Lifted. Jesus, that's enough really, isn't it? Well, it's even better than that. Sweet funk licks, great breaks and real horns. Real horns!

Do Your Thing must be a hidden tribute to 90% Of Me Is You (Gwen McCrae). Oh my, look at that - Gwen and George McCrae used to be married. Who'd have thought (I'm not being sarcastic, this connection only just occurred to me).

Anyways, I know some folks that are going to be very very excited when I show this to them.

Now, I can't remember if my well electro-educated (glitchy stuff in particular) friends told me if this guy was good or not but if they didn't, well, they were wrong. This stuff straddles the glitch/pop divide nicely.

Before I downloaded this album I actually grabbed a copy of a tune called Dog Days that everyone seems to be banging on about (those in the know cringe at my ignorance right now). It deserves the attention actually. Smart, upbeat, poppy, catchy and interesting. All the classic glitch noises are there but it's music your girlfriend would dance to. The same story goes for Asa Bread too.

The moment I arrived back in London after my travels I asked my friend, Will, to give me a big musical dose of the new and interesting. This was the second album on the stereo. Now I'm hooked. Currently sitting on the train back from Bristol trying to jam as much of this stuff into my head as possible before the Dan Deacon gig at The End tomorrow night. I can't wait, looks like damn good geeky fun.

Synths running arpeggios, fat basslines, catchy hooks all bashed together in wonderfully cohesive poly-rhythms. And let's not forget the sing-a-longs for the whole family (which seem to be the basis for the live gigs).

I guess, to most it's just noise (though I'm not going to presume to know what's going through the head's of the masses). Wham City has it all covered (12 minutes long, you gotta let it build). If you ain't got it by the end of that pearler, well, I guess you never will.