New Animal Collective and a comp of forgotten King Tubby classics…
Animal Collective, People EP: If you haven’t figured out by now that I’m totally gooey for this sort of stuff, here’s your final and total confirmation. The title track is definitely the best thing here, and it’s poppy and accessible-enough that I would recommend it even to folks who were only sorta into Sung Tongs.
Carlton Patterson & King Tubby, Black & White in Dub: Blood and Fire-curated, but not released, this is a collection of ’70s dub-sides of Carlton Patterson singles, a lesser-known roots reggae brother, but one who worked with Horace Andy, Sugar Minott, all the big-name greats. Another essential for dub and roots enthusiasts.
Acid House Kings, Sing Along with Acid House Kings: Twee-pop shot in 16mm, a goofy band name off-set by some very serious, forlorn tunes.
A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble, A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble: Their last album rightly ended up in Todd’s Neo-Balkan Dozen, which should give you as good an idea as any of what this excellent duo sounds like. Bonus trivia: mainman Jeremy Barnes was in Neutral Milk Hotel.
DJ Koze, All the Time: The B-side here tops the A-side pretty handily, “Cicely” warm and creepy where “All the Time” is just a bit clumsy and monotonous. Not the one-two punch we’ve grown to expect from Koze, but “Cicely” is certainly worth grabbing.
Datarock, Fa-Fa-Fa EP: Remix EP from Norwegian dance-rock duo.
yancey, you’re crazy! listen to “all the time” again (and again!). i think its clumsiness is precisely what makes it so appealing — it’s so weird and lumbering and ungainly and yet also somehow incredibly fleet. imagine elephants dancing to a timbaland beat. (in tu-tus, if you want.) i particularly like how busy it is, and yet all the sounds sit so easily in the mix. then there’s that bizarre half-second drop-out at 1:49, just when the beat kicks in — every time i hear it my eyes jump to my itunes to make sure that i haven’t somehow just muted my computer. (once upon a time that trick might have been a way of mimicking a DJ’s cuts, but i think koze has home-listening habits in mind nowadays.) and sure, the track doesn’t really go anywhere, but i think that’s also part of its charm — it’s the total antithesis of international pony’s poppy, feel-good immediacy. and those detuned synths… i could go on; mainly i just wanted to register an alternate point of view, because i think “all the time” shows koze in top form. (interestingly, it’s the flipside that i’m a little “meh” about.)