Hey, as I’ve admitted elsewhere on these pages, I was a child of the 80’s. When it came to the electronic music of the decade, I did have certain tastes. Big fan of Tears for Fears’ the Hurting, as well as A-ha (those Norwegians could write a fantastic pop song), the Thompson Twins (who weren’t really twins), the perverse Australian fun of Severed Heads, and even, gulp, for a brief while, the Communards. Despite their popularity at church dances, I was not so into Depeche Mode, and I sold Erasure back to the CD exchange store a week after buying it. After ending 2007 with the electronic pop of hollAnd, I’ll also start 2008 in the same vein, although the Fantasy Mirrors are much more blatant in their devotion to 80’s electronic music. Anyone care to take a stab at naming the Fantasy Mirrors’ influences?
hollAnd
Let me end 2007 with hollAnd, one of my favorite all-time bands, who I first wrote about on 3hive in May 2004, although it’s not so much a band as it is one Trevor Kampmann, musician/producer/former-child-TV-actor extraordinaire. A dozen (or more, depending on how you count) releases, along with even more production credits, over the last dozen or so years. From the day I bought the Sea Saw (his first moniker) seven inch Stereo on a whim at No Life Records in LA until the recent release Love Fluxus and my new favorite hollAnd song “French Grass” (replacing his cover of Human League’s “The Lebanon”), I’m man enough to say it’s been a love affair.
4Hero
Today’s selection is actually a nice bookend to Lisa’s Hello, Blue Roses post yesterday, albeit 4Hero has always been more of a sweeping club fave than an electronic bedroom dweller. Way back in 1999, I took a job in Los Angeles and drove down the very next day in my Chevy Sprint Turbo (yes, turbo), and 4Hero’s Two Pages, which came out a few months before, was about the only cassette I had that would play in my cheapo radio. Unlike the CD release, the promo segregated the darker drum’n’bass onto one cassette and the more chilled-out, string-laden fusion stuff onto another. As the title suggests, one was a great antidote to the other. In the central Utah mountains? Time for Ursula Rucker’s smooth spoken-word over lovely breakbeats and sweeping strings. Trudging the home stretch through the Mojave? Bring on the sci-fi jungle. Since that bygone era when we were all going to be dot-com millionaires, 4Hero has gravitated more and more toward the groove, and “Morning Child†has the feel of both a return to form and a culmination of the form. It also sounds like a lithe and lovely summer song, so perhaps it’ll warm up your new year a few degrees.
Merry Christmas 2007
May you and yours have a festive and safe holiday this year. Please enjoy this Christmas song from our friends in Letting Up Despite Great Faults (gingerbread houses courtesy Sean’s kids):
Chairs in the Arno
Have you ever pursued a particular boy or girl because he or she was hot in a way that another particular boy or girl was hot, but for whatever reason the former boy or girl avoided your clutch? Well that’s the situation in which I currently find myself. Musically speaking. It’s been over a year since I’ve heard anything from Jason Korzen in any form and I’ve been in need of an synth-geek fix. And as my dear Cuzzin Brad used to say, Chairs in the Arno are “putting me where I need to be.” Moogs, a microKorg, an MC 505 groovebox and sweet boy/girl vocals are like Hershey Kisses to me. Once I’ve popped one in my mouth, I can’t stop. Those wily Kisses are prone to push my pants slightly past size thirty. Chairs in the Arno remind me that hey, that’s OK.
Mikrofisch
Mikrofisch is our first entry from the Hamburg net-label, Komakino. Their album, Masters of the Universe, represents the label’s first full-length release (the band’s second) and you can download it, in its entirety, here. Mikrofisch formed with the intention of covering The Smiths, but left their first recording session with four original tracks and “a brilliantly intimate lo-fi version of Morrissey´s Everyday Is Like Sunday on fourtrack.” Five years later Mikrofisch remains brilliantly lo-fi, and brilliantly playful, but from what I gather, this long distant recording duo (London/Hamburg) backgrounded their guitars around 2003 and opted for a synth-based sound. The first song, “Drum Machines Will Save Mankind” serves as a kind of mission statement for Mikrofisch in their understated quest to take over the musical universe: “Make a beat so we can dance, make the kids form bedroom bands.” Then Mikrofisch sets their alliances, forming their own Justice League of Indie Rock, in the tongue-in-cheek “Let’s Kiss and Listen to Bis” (hip, indie reference help). The band name drops some of their favorite bands and sounds circa 1995: Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur Jr, Afghan Whigs, Sonic Youth, Twee, and an allusion to the now defunct March Records (“Keep Sparky’s dream alive…). Finally, it’s the micro-epic “The Kids are All Shite” in which Mikrofisch battle the current UK indie scene including HMV, NME, Coldplay, Keane, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Jet, Razorlight, their clones and fans. Delusions of grandeur? Perhaps, but Mikrofisch’s small and simple sounds are brimming with enough hooks and wit to bring their great dreams to life.
Freezepop
What do 80’s electronic dance popsters Freezepop have in common with the Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols? They’ve all been included in the video game Guitar Hero!
Life has been good for Freezepop since we first posted about them on 3hive in July of 2004. They’ve been included in said Guitar Hero game that the kids love so much, and they’ll soon be in some MTV game (I’m not so good with reading to the end of press releases), but they sure keep pumping out the 80’s inspired electronic pop. So let that be a lesson to all you young bands and kids just playing Guitar Hero out there; keep doing your own thing, and maybe you, too, will someday be featured in Guitar Hero XXVII.
Original post July 7, 2004:
In their own words, Freezepop is “hip enough for hipsters but nerdy enough for nerds.” That pretty much says it all.
Spitzer
Spitzer consists of a couple young men raised in the same house in Lyon, France. These brothers have one goal: Make you dance. Currently, the duo is working on a four song EP called Roller Coaster and if the four tracks on their myspace page are any indication of what we’re in for, we’re in for some big, bright and bold dancefloor action. I love the early Speak & Spell-like synth tones used on “Disco Biscuits.” Of course they’ve been pumped up ala Marion Jones for maximum rump-shakin’ enjoyment. The track opens with one synth riff getting overshadowed by another, high up in the mix, trampling over the first until that second riff distorts itself into oblivion as the track finally settles into its groove, a slamming epiphany imminent. Spitzer proves France still has fertile fields to harvest for yet another generation of club kids.
Hasch’m’Méneum
This is a fun mystery.
Having stumbled upon Hasch’m’Méneum through the backalleys of Last.fm, I have yet to find any more information on them. The best source of information comes in the way of the “electrojazz†tag given to them on said social music network. Normally we at Moodmat shun genre names, especially those of the hastily taped- and stapled-together variety. But this one ain’t bad. Hasch’m’Méneum’s “jazz†has a blues-y chug to it, and their “electro†bubbles a bit under the surface. So songs like “Heliotrope†wouldn’t be out of place in a Jazzanova set, and “Slide†evokes the “future sound of Hull,†a.k.a. Fila Brazillia. Who are these masked men? And why did they leave us two free albums to download?
Dan Sicko (special guest to 3hive.com)
Múm
For the uninitiated: Múm makes music that would emanate from Willy Wonka’s jewelry box. I can close my eyes and actually see their music. It looks like a found object sculpture, with various instruments, kitchen utensils, and all manner of gadgets (analog and digital) piled high and held together with catgut and twine. A marvelous contraption set in motion and song by dropping a large marble into a bright chrome cylinder soldered to the top. As the marble travels down the sculpture, in, out, and back in again, it triggers notes, chords, voices, tiny starched flags adorned with glitter and stars and fastened to thin gold poles, flickering in and out of view—an explosion of sparkles signaling each change of timbre and tone, beat and bell, melody and mood. In a word, or two, utterly fanciful. Múm is the music of the butterflies that tickle your heart when you’re in love. If this is the first Múm song you’ve ever heard, please don’t let it be your last…