The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week:  ‘Montgomery Clift’ by Ajello feat. Jyoti

This one starts lovely with that beat and those drums, that gets the shoulders swinging no doubt. Then you get this lovely synth sound in there, and you’re in party mode from the get go. Leave that to the Italians of Ajello, who know how to do this. After the minute mark you get both the bass in as well as the vocals, courtesy of Jyoti, though the synths keep the pace up as well. Add some light percussion in there too, and you know you can get freaky with this. After some more rhythmic delivery, at 2:10 the actual singing starts, giving it some nice diva disco element as well, singing that she thinks that she’s Done it again. It’s got this nice Italian-dance-it-better feel, with a bit of that attitude and fun. At about 3:20 you have basically this percussion-shoot-out with some bass groove thrown in there, with later a guitar coming up as well. And so they just throw it all in there like a big bowl of Jambalaya for that festive, colour-popping party feel. But they also know when to change the pace a bit, like they do at about 4:20, half a minute later coming back with primarily drums and percussion. It’s just this crazy mixture of all these things that somehow come together and that somehow all add to the party. Now, Montgomery Clift, for those not in the know, is one of those Hollywood actors who changed the face of masculinity around the James Dean era. Like James Dean he was method, like James Dean he was good friends with Elizabeth Taylor, and like James Dean he slept with men. Unlike Dean, he actually survived his car crash. And, just to return to the track, those whispery vocals in the seventh minute add just that little bit of cheekiness to it to round it all off.

‘So Good’ by Tuxedo (Dimitri In Paris remix)

I love me some Dimitri In Paris. The guy knows how to get the disco and funk in, and his edits are always build around dancing and fun. This one has got some soulful vocals by Mayer Hawthorne, who is one part of Tuxedo. The more hipperdy-hop vocals  are by Jack One, which give you some of that slick '90s feel. They sing that it all Feels so good to me, it’s where I want to be. The track is perhaps a bit less full-on disco than you’d normally encounter in a Dimitri in Paris set, veering more to the catchy pop side of the spectrum. Let me put it this way, it’s one of those things that I feel I’d could be hearing on primetime radio alongside all those major artists doing that funk-dance-pop thing in the past years. Also helped by the vocals, which are less 70s and more a nu/90sR&B hybrid. This track is enormously easy on the ear, and has got this sitting-at-the-beach-with-a-boombox-in-summer characteristic to it.

‘In Films’ by Chromatics

Chromatics are one of those bands that I just adore. All these tracks just have so much atmosphere, and an atmosphere that I tremendously love at that. This one has a nice, throbbing beat that keeps the pace up on this one (as much as it gets up on a Chromatics album), and of course you have these dreamy, lovelorn vocals that come in on top of it. Naturally, there are the synths that are so key to the Chromatics’ sound, and here some synth sounds also double as a vocals substitute (as in, when she stops singing, those synths come in). These have a nice, euphoric feel to them, kind of contrasting the voice a bit. Next to those, obviously, you’ve got the rhythm synths that double track the drums. This really sounds like a lead single to me. Because of the pace, the catchiness it kind of has, and the euphoric chorus synth that Johnny Jewel uses. New album coming, and everyone in the world’s stoked about that (at least, the part that knows of this band’s existence). Also, the following two things: A) Free download, and B) lyrics posted in the info section on SoundCloud.

‘Mouth’ by Ghost Culture (Shan & Gerd Janson club mix)

Let’s jack it up with this one, immediately starting out with those house sounds for those midnight-clubbin’-freaks. You’ve got the beat, the bass synth, and a lighter synth sound as the core sounds, on top of which the vocals come in after the one minute mark. The vocals are rhythmic and talky, providing even more structure to dance to. I love the beat on this one, and how it just kind of spurs the track at those moments where the vocals stop for a minute. The vocals sound a bit absent-minded, which lend a nice vibe to this track. I’m always a pretty big fan of Gerd Janson and his house sounds, and here, again, he shows along with Shan that he knows how to get that house sound in the club. It’s a four minute clip, but definitely something I’d be dancing to when played in it’s entirety in the discotheque.

‘X’ by TB (Italo Deviance Disco Version)

The start has quite the kick in it, and when the vocals come in you immediately hear this kind of space-like feel. Not long after you get the bass to go with the space, and this track is starting to warm up, building and building some momentum with those core sounds. After about 1:30 you get a bit of a rest, with the space sounds and vocals taking over, but at the 1:50 mark they come back with a vengeance, this time fronted by some punk-like vocal delivery as the beat returns. The narrative is about voices from outer space I do believe, and it gets this kind of '70s feel meets the Berlin underground clubs. Lots of black make-up and strobes, that’s what I’m seeing here. Naturally, this Italo Deviance Disco Version knows how to use a beat to get some dancing done, and that nifty bass (just listen around 4:30 for a good example of that) helps out a bit as well.

‘The Seed’ by The Revenge

The Revenge starts this one with a man saying “Here we go”, then applause, and in the mean time the beat and drums are moving it forward, though the real house sounds come in at about 35 seconds with that typical bass jack-it-up sound. There’s a certain deepness in the beat as well, which gets juxtaposed by some of the almost jazzy ditty lines that you can hear in the background to keep this one from becoming just a mechanical club thing. Just after the two minute mark you get a synth sound that slowly starts moving to the front, arriving there around 2:20 to become a major player in this one. Halfway through you get a voice saying “here we go”, though that is about the only vocal thing that is happening in this track. The Revenge almost always delivers a quality piece, and this one is another one of those with a nice, deep house sound with a few change-ups and a few auxiliary sounds in there that all make it worth your while.

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week:  ‘What’s Your Name’ by David Bowie (LNTG’s Hypnotizin funk remix)

How about a slow funker by mister Late Nite Tuff Guy? He knows how to do a nifty little edit like no other, and here he takes on Bowie’s delightful ‘Fame’. He starts out by slowing it down to a trotting pace, with first just that funky guitar bit, then coming with the bass, and then adding a downpour of ice cold utterances of “fame”, after which the bass and guitar take over again. And you don’t just get that funky guitar line, but he adds some of that solo guitar as well. The way this guy plays with all those guitar sounds is just amazing, using it for all sorts of things, and in the mean time that track just keeps on going in that slow funk. About 2:30 in you get the Bowie vocals like we know them from the original, and they juxtapose the soul that is in the funk so well. The vocals are still from that American soul era, but they still feel like fame has sucked the life out of it and put the mechanical in. After the vocal bits, again, that lovely interplay between the different guitar lines, not to mention the bass, and near the end he throws in another stretch of vocals with Bowie asking if it’s any wonder that he rejected all that fame at first. I always look forward to LNTG’s edits, and this is again a perfect reminder why.

‘TR 707’ by Dabuell feat. Holybrune

Are you kidding me with those vocals? That is just pure genius, right there. It just feels like one of those power R&B ballads from a couple of decades ago. It’s got the male and female vocal interplay, it’s got all kinds of throwback instrumentals, and it’s got this lovely slow pace that gives all of it plenty of time to come through the way it should be coming through. The title, likely, a nod to the TR 707 Roland, which I’m assuming was used to get some of those sounds in (and no wonder it sounds throwback in that case, as the TR 707 is from about the 80s I reckon). I like the fade out ending as well, with some piano thrown in there. It is just a lovely, old-school sounding pop track that hits all the right marks as far as I’m concerned.

‘Invisions’ by Luca C & Brigante feat. Roisin Murphy

The song starts out with a deep beat, but that’s immediately juxtaposed by a very light, bell-like sound. After that the track quickly veers more into dance pop territory, with that catchy, poppy synth that underscores Murphy’s vocals, which just about fit on top of everything. The second verse gets some extra oomph by a new bassline as well, and in the chorus Murphy gets all kinds of help. When the vocals come back in again there’s just this awesome stretch that just epitomizes catchiness to me, and that synth line just doesn’t let up. And rightfully so, if you’ve got something that works, ride it. And if you do need to bench it for just a moment, there’s no better sub to throw in there than that bassline. Which works in two ways, as the bass is deeper, and it gives you some extra variety. It is a nice, catchy track that mixes the dancefloor with a nice topping of pop vibes. Not sure where the entire track has gone to on SoundCloud, but here’s at least a BBC radio rip to get a bit of an idea.

‘Pick You Up’ by Lxury

This is really comes out of the gates with a bang, with the strong vocals immediately singing/shouting that “I’ve come to love you” on top of a house beat. So if that doesn’t get a track going, I don’t know what does. About forty seconds in Lxury reigns it all back a bit, going for an instrumental, synth-based web-o-atmosphere, after which he immediately dives into the dancefloor feel again with the vocals and some snappy, quick percussion dictating the pace. Floating underneath those two elements there’s still a dreamy synth line, though that one soon gets drowned out by the more straight-up house elements. After about two minutes in there’s again a little break in the action, but luckily a totally different one than the way he did it earlier on. So loads going on in the mere four minutes this track runs, and if you do it like this perhaps it’s a good thing that it doesn’t go on longer as that would definitely overdose anyone listening. But it sounds like a very modern approach to take some of the characteristics of house music and condense that into a 4-minute modern tune that can also (will primarily?) work outside of the club.

‘It’s All About You’ by Kim Ann Foxman

Kim Ann Foxman you might know as the jumping-jack on the Hercules And Love Affair stage, touring as a member of that troupe for their first couple of tours. Now she’s doing her own thing, and she is definitely leaning more towards the tech-house side of the spectrum. There are certainly vocals in there, but they are more haunting than soulful, and it’s definitely not vocal driven, with the tech sounds coming through in spades. And the girl knows her dance, that’s for sure, so this is one to get some of that late night clubbing done to. It ticks all the boxes, it’s got a danceable beat, it’s got the percussion, the synth for flavor, the vocals for good measure, and some extra sounds like that one at about 3:25 that adds some ownership to her sound. Not to mention she’s got the structure down pat, adding extra lines when needed, and coming with that quick, momentum building percussion to indicate a change is going to come. Just a well-executed dance track from Foxman, who has just started her own music brand that we will undoubtedly be hearing from in 2015, especially on the club side of things. Not one to water the club sounds down for radio play she is, from all I’ve heard coming from her thus far.

‘Holding On’ by James Fox (The Revenge remix)

I love the way the vocals start this one off, with a female voice saying that she doesn’t want to lose control. A nice, bassy synth line is slid underneath that, and you can already hear some percussion coming through, and after about a minute in you get this lovely beat. I love those drums, I really do, especially combined with that bass, it just has this awesome attitude and flavour. And The Revenge surely does know how to build it all up. The female vocals have moved into actual singing by this time, exclaiming that The love you had before, burns inside of you. The “don’t want to lose control” line is kind of tongue-in-cheek I reckon, as the whole thing about dancing is letting go of any control and rigidness, and they sure do their best to let you dance with those a-typical drums. The second part has some more lighter synth sounds, and I like the different ways the singer is using her vocals, adding something different every time she comes on. A lovely, layered track by The Revenge, which shines in terms of structure.