Typically, I'm months behind the curve on this one. But it's all relative, huh? I know I'll the only kid with my postcode to be into this, for example. I always have been, and always will be, interim hip. Cooler than most, but with a broader and shallower perspective than the true scenester. Take that Youthmovies gig I went to the other night. I love that band, but the venue, amidst the Turkish shops and restaurants of Stoke Newington Road, was full of Dalston trendy scene wankers who'd drifted northwards. Lower Dalston is North Hoxton these days. There was not a sensible haircut to be seen. And I bet they've been downloading this stuff for months. Fuckers.Anyway, tedious work and life having intervened these past weeks - the two are distinct but subtly related - it's been a while since I last confessed my love of a particular record to no one in particular on here. I don't know if it's a coincidence but I seem to be going through one of those areas of poor reception where very little music is doing it for me at the moment. Most things sound standard; little really inspires. The only things that are exciting me just now are mixed up, mucky stuff like this, and like the Fuck Buttons record, and to some extent Munch Munch, and of course Crystal Castles. What this grab-bag might have in common I'm not sure, apart from a certain willfulness and willingness to defy formula, and the offering of a refreshing possibility that there might be people making music just for the playful hell of it all, rather than seeing it as a career.
So this is yet another Euro-trashy record put together by doubtless fearless 16 year-olds who I would despise if I ever met in real life, where they would be hanging around a bus shelter and filming my mugging on their 3G mobile phones. There's a lot of this stuff around at the moment to be sure, and it all comes from Kitsune in 12"s with those generic sleeves. Through all this CSS remixes run like a golden thread, pulling all these tunes together. You know, something interesting happened when the internet became the prime means of disseminating music and all the barriers came down and people started making records that just mixed stuff up without even realising that you weren't supposed to do that. Remember when you were only allowed to like certain things? We were wrong, weren't we? At the same time, of course, this internet generation grew up with instant, permanent access to eye-popping hardcore pornography, so there's a certain blank, whatever, grubbiness to proceedings, as captured brilliantly by our old friends The Teenagers. I'm convinced our civilisation is doomed and we're all going to hell, but at the same time I rather enjoy the soundtrack.
Naturally regardless of the internet I still demand the physical object by way of affirmation - people were blogging about this lot back in May, but it's only in December that the record came out and made it real for me. And what you get on this 12" is ludicrous and brilliant. A big crash bang wallop of a start yields to seriously distorted, squelchy keyboards. It sounds like something taped off the radio onto a gnarled old C90 tape (ask your parents). Amidst all the crunchy filthiness of this tune which is rock and dance simultaneously lurks a sweet, naive vocal and a memory-grabbing unashamed pop chorus. Is that I hint of Baccara I hear? Plus all the good records these days have gratuitous swearing in them, like this does. Fact.
Anyway, go and buy the record from someone, and then you get the mandatory not-as-good-as-the-original remixes too. Where would we be without them? No wonder Brazil's economy is booming. And then go and download The Anthem by the same. It's almost identical, and nearly as good.
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