Divine

This Friday I had the privilege of watching Gang Gang Dance perform at Bimbo's in North Beach. It was easily the best live show I've seen since Hercules & Love Affair. I would recommend attending if they come to any city near you because the Brooklyn-based (and you can tell it from their accents) foursome play a unique brand of dance rock psychedelia that has a severely raw energy that many other electronic acts lack of late. Also as previously mentioned, please go pick up their new album, Saint Dymphna, it is easily one of my favorites for the year.



As for upcoming live performances, Sebastien Tellier is gracing SF with his bearded presence on Thursday, December 4th at the Mezzanine. He will be joined by BEAT ELECTRIC DJs Black Shag, BT Magnum, and Safety Scissors so it should be an awesome party as well. For those of you unfamiliar, Tellier released his newest album Sexuality earlier in the year and it is a French pop masterpiece produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk. I just found the music video for his single "Divine" which was shot at various locations around LA.



The rest of the album features darker synth-pop infused with piano and tastefully topped with erotic moaning. I have heard quite good things about Sebastien's live performances and if his performance at the 2008 European Song Contest are any indication of what his show will be like there is reason to get quite excited. Bearded backups + golf cart entrance + helium verse... you do the math, it adds up quite nicely.


Also this week our very own SF natives Windsurf (the long-time alliance of Hatchback and Sorcerer) have released their full length album Coastlines. The album is a collection of luscious beach jams in the typically dreamy Windsurf fashion, transporting me to an island oasis where I can enjoy pina coladas, white sand and blue water as far as the eye can see. They truly have captured the soundtrack to paradise. Anyways, thought I'd share an old favorite that shows up on the album, their track "Pocket Check" was released on Internasjonal (PT's other label) on the Windsurf EP earlier this year, enjoy and go check out the album!

Windsurf - Pocket Check

Live Medicine

Since I've begun posting I have been sharing a lot of dance music that comes off of the records I've been buying, but today I figured I'd share some of the music from the albums I have been listening to lately. In particular the music of a few artists that have released new albums this year that you should definitely go and search out if you like what you hear.

First up is a track off of the remix album //Disco by Los Angeles-based noise rock group HEALTH. The album is by no means disco, but features several different bastard children of the recent nurave/electro movement in a clusterfuck of distortion, acid, glitch, and haunting Crystal Castles-like vocals. All in all it is quite excellent. In fact Crystal Castles shows up on the album as well, so if they are up your alley then definitely check this album out. The remix here comes from Pictureplane (who according to their myspace, hail from Denver) brings in some serious flavor to the noise in their remix.

HEALTH - Lost Time (Pictureplane Remix)

Moving along with more genre-bending artists we have the duo from Brooklyn, High Places. They have been around for a couple years now creating music within the vein of "new primitivism" (according to them) and have released their new self-titled album earlier this year. I hear the music more as a surprisingly successful fusion of tribal drums, nursery rhyme folk lyrics, and bell-like electronics and percussion. The textures they create transport you to a jungle paradise where the rhythm of the water in the stream nearby combines with the faint voices of forest nymphs singing lullabies to each other in the setting twilight. Listen to this track off the new album and you will know what I mean.

High Places - The Tree With The Lights In It


Similarly inventive with sonic textures, yet achieving a completely different result, fellow New Yorkers Gang Gang Dance will release their new album this week I believe and it is quite possibly one of my favorites of the year. I first heard of this group on 20JFG, but was never really blown away until I heard their new material. Their new album Saint Dymphna (which is supposedly the saint born to an Irish pagan chief and his Christian wife in the 7th century) combines clever electronic production with tribal percussion, live drumming, indie vocals and subtle hip hop influences. Dance under the pagan moon with Saint Dymphna.

Gang Gang Dance - First Communion


As you dance the night away and lose yourself in the stars you can dive into the progressive disco of Kelley Polar's I Need You To Hold On Why The Sky Is Falling. The album came out earlier this year from Environ, the wonderful label on which nudisco gods Metro Area release most of their material. Polar leaves the binds of dance beats behind on this album for a more free-form canvas of tempos and structures, but succeeds quite amazingly. His classical training comes through in the meticulousness of his compositions, but that is also his greatest challenge on the album. His voice at first didn't sit well with me but the more I listened the more I became enamored with how the elements of his music fit piecewise together. However, the vocals on this surging track fit quite perfectly with the production and sweep you away to a cosmic landscape of lights and music.

Kelley Polar - Sea Of Sine Waves

While I linked you to several convenient online locations for the albums, please go buy them at your local record store if you get a chance, Rasputin, Amoeba, or whatever you have around the corner. Help support your local record shops and they will continue to help you access great music.