fourfour: I shouldna left you without a dope beat to step to

It's so easy to get mired in crap and forget that, oh yeah, I actually really love really good music. The following four tracks make up an unofficial EP of what I listened to most last weekend -- hope they work just as well for getting through the rest of the week. Two new songs, two old cuz I'm bi like that.

~~LCD Soundsystem "Tribulations (Lindstrom Remix)"~~

The only things right now that are more exciting than Hans-Peter Lindstrom are sex and food. He runs Feedelity Records in Oslo, a vehicle mainly for his own releases, which makes sense: he's a peerless contemporary disco producer. Instead of rehashing the dark, mechanical side of electronic disco, he places most emphasis on melody. Not that he's any slouch when it comes to the beats, which are actually what make his treatment of "Tribulations" so special. The sizzling percussion sounds like it's leaping off a drum kit, giving the track a live-feeling counterpoint to its sequenced synths and frigidly precise bass line. Combined with James Murphy's howling, the result isn't just another Italo throwback (like, say, the fantastic original version), but a track that resurrects the super-specific sound of proto-Italo and a time before every bobbing thing got covered in plastic. This wouldn't have sounded out of place on Azoto's 1978 album Disco Fizz, which makes all the more sense since it's so damn effervescent.

~~Matthew Herbert "Celebrity"~~

Matthew Herbert shakes his fists and bits of found sounds arrange themselves into living, breathing rhythms. In the past, he's proved his genius by integrating socially conscious polemic with infectious, often danceable music (1998's Around the House and 2001's Bodily Functions are the best examples, though his 2003's Goodbye Swingtime with the Matthew Herbert Big Band was just as brilliant, if not more difficult to digest). However, his latest project, Plat du Jour, a rage against cuisine and all of the food industry's lies and waste, is more in line with his brutal, less melodically inclined work as Radio Boy (see The Mechanics of Destruction). It's kind of a shame, because when Herbert's in his most immediate, pop mode, he's at his best (at the very least Plat needs to be researched to be appreciated, which Herbert doesn't mind per se, but listeners do -- Swingtime received very little love and I probably wouldn't have taken to it so strongly if I didn't have to research it for a story). "Celebrity" is Plat's shining moment because instead of reveling in hard-nosed samples and chafing rhythms, it's crisp with tangibility, thanks especially to a one-two punch of hooks (the R&B bridge that slinks off of Danni Siciliano's silken tongue and then the dance-circle-cum-ridicule-pit that calls out irresponsible celebrity endorsements). Herbert explains on Plat's site that the music here is created entirely from children's food with "dubious nutritional value" that celebrities have hawked. Though heavy handed ("You are what you sell!") and a bit too anti-star for me to completely align myself with, I nonetheless love the imagery of this line: "Cash me into little pieces." "Celebrity" is a lazy title, though, isn't it? I woulda called it "Us, Bleakly."

(P.S. Ex-Moloko singer Roisin Murphy's solo debut, Ruby Blue, provides a nice alternative to all of this Herbert-mandated thinking; he produced all of the wacky, wild jazzhousepop Roisin vamps against, making Blue neck-and-neck with the new Missy for my album of the year so far.)

~~Advance "Take Me To the Top"~~

It's insane that this '82 disco-yes-disco track hails from Italy. Besides its highly synthesized nature, it was virtually nothing to do with what was happening on the Boot at the time. Instead of Italo disco, it sounds much more like hardcore New York boogie (I have a feeling that the singer -- whose name I don't know -- was American). This is really just gorgeous (at least one person thinks it's the "best Italo tune ever made"). It's warm in spite of itself, with a tremendous pre-chorus bridge that mounts and mounts till the chorus just explodes with the dance music's particular brand of unspecific motivation. I first heard this track a few weeks ago, when Metro Area spun at the mind-blowing newish NYC spot Love. Hearing it for the first time on such a beautiful sound system brought me close to tears. The bass line made the walls vibrate. I hear that this was played on New York radio way back when. Those were the days!

~~Kwamé & a New Beginning "Ownlee Eue"~~

Speaking those days (albeit, a different set), remember how everything was dancey in the early 90's? "Ownlee Eue" doesn't purport to be anything but an uptempo love jam, and yet it can't quite escape the signs of its time -- hip-housey percussion patters (no 4/4, though), a jogging tempo and wailing diva vocals. There's an arbitrary moodiness here and, of course, a series of endearingly misguided lyrical decisions from the polkadelic one (hear him cram "A love affair like this I could truly get my heart into" in just a bar and I'm making "Don't you see that you're the apple in my sleepy eyes," my new way of saying "I love you"). And then there's the bizarre spelling in the song's title that's completely ignored by said wailing diva ("Y-O-U can make me bring the world to you," she goes). Kwamé, you stupid for this one!

Bonus track

I recently stumbled upon DJ Drank's Greatest Malt Liquor Hits, a CD-R compilation from 2003 that collects 30 1-minute spots a slew of rappers (Ice Cube, Rakim, Yo-Yo) recorded to promote St. Ides. I can't get enough of these for so many reasons , not the least of which is that they name names, explicitly slagging off competitors like OE. Oh, and also great is Cube's assertion that the crooked I will "get your jimmy thicker." The best spot, however, finds the Geto Boys' revamping their biggest hit. Listen below -- St. Ides heaven!

~~Geto Boys "My Malt's Playin' Tricks On Me"~~

(Read more about Malt Liquor Hits and purchase it by searching "malt" and then scrolling down here. Some more insight is here.)