Weekly Column - The Froth!

Track Of The Week:  ‘Shine’ by Digitaria (Morgan Geist remix)

I love Morgan Geist, who also makes music under the alias of Storm Queen, and those tracks are simply amazing. This one has got a slightly sharper beat to it than most of his output under the Storm Queen guise, but that bass that comes in after a minute is stellar for sure. Love the interplay with the vocals, he really works those vocals and sounds well off of each other. Just lovely when such guys find a way to mesh things so completely. Nice staccato sounds its got, guess you can do a bit of that vogueing to this if you’ve got the shazam for it. At the three minute mark you get this strip down moment, after which Geist puts a beat under the vocals again, and in the mean time he prolongs those percussion elements as well. Then he quickly shifts to that staccato sound again, taking once more his cue from the vocals. Before the five minute mark he puts the synths in, closely followed by a beat, even going slightly cosmic on us. I just love that cheeky bass, also in the end when that bass and a light piano/synth sound are the only things  that are there for a while, before a louder synth comes back with a vengeance, even sounding slightly melancholic for a moment. Love how he ends it with the vocals. Great stuff again from Geist.

‘The Secret Life of Arabia’ by David Bowie (Mirror People B.E.F. edit)

I can get doing an alternate version of ‘Let’s Dance’ (own some remixes of that myself, great stuff guys can do with that), but to be honest I had no idea how one could make this David Bowie tune into a good edit. Apparently, with a percussion start, for that is the route Mirror People have chosen. Quickly  those guitars come in, after which they turn to a bass and synth combination, making it into some sort of tropical surprise this. Happy it surely is, so if you are wanting a Berlin vibe, quickly look away now. At 2:20 you get a frantic vocal performance by Bowie yelling “ARAAABIAA!”, and Mirror People alter the vocal line cheekily at some moments, which is kind of a nice trick to be honest. In the mean time you’ve got the beat to dance to, a cowbell comes in as well, so enough rhythm there to keep you moving when the vocals arrive. I like the part after the initial vocal lines where he changes it up instrumentally into something a bit faster paced with some nice fingerplucking on bass and guitar I believe. That’s the part I really fancy of this. After that he nicely rides it out for a surprising Bowie edit, in which the second part trumps the beginning as far as I’m concerned.

‘Outside Amore’ by Man Tear (edit)

Man Tear is a collaboration between Axel Boman and Petter Nordkvist, and after throwing some of those gameboy sounds and yelps in (which I always find terribly annoying), the track does its best to redeem itself with a nice beat and lovely narrative-like vocals. Some nice drums in there to propel it forward, and those more rhythm sounds plus the way the lyrics are sung/said; those are the things that make the song as far as I’m concerned. Near the end it gets this slight melancholic kind of vibe, becoming one of those tracks you could either listen to whilst walking through the city at night or dance to with your eyes closed looking at the ground. With that said, some of those occassional auxiliary sounds are kind of strange, and some might not agree with every one of them (that yelping, for instance, really doesn’t do it for me), which is always the risk of introducing some non-traditional sounds I suppose (and good people do that eh, otherwise it would all get mighty boring).

‘Fake Bitches’ by Mark E

I always get hesitant to be honest when I see a title like this. I’m always thinking, of all the words in the English language, why something like bitches? For if it isn’t in the context of a sentence, it just looks like a forced way to be edgy or something. At least, it comes across like that to me. It starts with a beat with a loudness to impress (I would’ve expected no less after a title like that), but luckily Mark E builds up that house sound with percussion, bass, and other elements to stray away from just a loud beat. With the yelping from the two minute mark on, and just the overall pace and immediacy, it is really something to get the dancefloor on moving, and that’s something I think it does succeed in. It’s one of those tracks when you’re in the midst of a set and you want to pull out a mostly instrumental banger for people to not to lose any momentum to, then here you go. I’ll just ignore the yelling of whether or not there are some fake bitches in the house and I’ll just focus on that freaking bass that gets it going on (though as the yelling gets louder and more clear, it becomes increasingly more difficult to ignore it, and not to be annoyed by it). Musically though, definitely getting it on Mark E is, not letting up until literally the final second.

‘Can U’ by Late Night Tuff Guy

I love disco edits and edits of popular songs, which freely translates into me loving Late Night Tuff Guy. His edits are always amazingly smooth, and he never rushes things but always takes his time for it (and boy, does he on this one). This time he takes on Sharon Redd’s ‘Can You Handle It’, one of those lovely disco things that put that second wave of feminism smack down in the middle of the track. I mean, just look at that title. Naturally LNTG puts in some percussion so you can dance to it on a modern dancefloor, but after half a minute those delightful disco sounds come in so that you immediately know from what aesthetic this is coming. Again, he bypasses the first opportunity to go to the vocals (and then some), which is great, I love it when things are not hurried. Also love it that the elements he puts in for the dancefloor to dance to, they don’t overpower the song. They could just as well be sounds that originally belonged to it to be honest. Love those bits of horns that come in, that is fabulous, and there’s a little solo going on as well. After 3:30 you really get to the sounds after which you’d expect the vocals to come in, and after four minutes there they are! Talking first, not yet singing, but obviously that will follow soon enough, but only after she’s done with telling you she has seen you all the way across the floor “talking that body talk”. Lovely disco cheeky that. After six minutes (which, admittedly, even for me, that’s quite a bit of patience there) he puts in the actual vocals that ask, finally, if you can handle it. Would’ve loved a minute more of the vocals pesonally, but that vibe he always gets going on is just amazing. If you like your disco and if you like to have some added opportunity to dance to it, this is for you.

‘Flights Over Egypt’ by Debonair

Disco is such a great source material, and The Jones Girls’ ‘Night over Egypt’ has gotten the edit treatment already a number of times. This one goes for a more dreamy overall feel with some floating synth sounds that cover that slight bass up almost completely. So don’t expect dancefloor gold from this one. Especially not since at 1:30 they almost stop the track completely (naturally to come back a little bit stronger, but still). It has got all these really understated sounds (even the percussion and beat moment around 2:45 is trying its hardest not to get above that lounge jazz vibe) which are really nice if you’re in for relaxing times. The jazz lounge feel really comes in a blazing when that new instrument introduces itself around 3:30, making a sound I really, really connote to that kind of a genre. Definitely a re-imagining of it, though for me slightly too sitting-in-a-chair-dozing-off-on-a-Sunday-afternoon personally.