Duchess Says: I am your MSTR

I'm in the mood for this #12
New releases #4
Disco is not a dirty word #5

Although they're not really disco per se, two bands who are highly influenced by leftfield disco are Canada's own MSTRKRFT and Duchess Says. Jesse Keelor and Al P's respective solo projects owe a lot to dirty disco and dancey post punk as much as the fair duchess. In honour of this connection, I played a few choice tracks in honour of both of these acts putting out new releases for the spring.


The first time I saw Duchess Says was at a show at the Marquee in Halifax duing the Halifax Pop Explosion in 2006. I didn't know anything about them, all I remember was seeing this girl with brown hair up on stage, a keytar in her hands and a huge ass sound coming out of the speakers. Screaming, bleeps, bangs and a tangle of hair crowd surfing into the adoring public.

Then last week I was very excited to find and hear their new album when it came into the offices of CKDU. The album, "Anthologie des 3 Perchoirs" comes out April 17th in record stores across Canada. In the meantime, check the links at the end of this post for an MP3 of the opening track, "Tenen Non Neu"



Ever since The Looks dropped in 2006, MSTRKRFT
have been riding a crest of hot press, sweet remixes (of their own work and for others) and capacity crowds. Laurels aside, there is something to be said for a duo who are just as comfortable producing rock records as they are working on remixes for UK Girl bands. In the middle of all that, there is a steady beat, a dirty bass and a sweaty sound. DJs are bored of playing the same records, crowds want something new and with their new single, out on Dim Mak. The single landed on April 1st, with a new album slated for release this fall.



Enjoy

Gonzales, "Overnight", Solo Piano
Feist, "Intuition", The Reminder
Richard Buckner, "Desire", Bloomed
Old Man Luedecke, "Little Bird", Proof of Love
Forest City Lovers, "Don't go"
Xiu Xiu, "I do want when I want", Women as Lovers
Nouvelle Vague, "Just can't get enough", Nouvelle Vague
Fred Hughes, "Baby Boy"
Etta James, "Seven Day Fool"
The Flirtations, "Nothing but a heartache"
Mark Ronson feat Amy Winehouse, "Valerie", Version
Gnarls Barkley, "Who's gonna save my soul", THe Odd Couple
Merryn Cadell, "Job Aplication", Angel Food For thought
Buck 65, "Indestructble Sam", Cretin Hip Hop Vol 1
Radiohead, "15 Steps", In Rainbows
Hot Chip, "Shake A Fist", Made In The Dark
James White & The Blacks, "Contort Yourself", Disco Not Disco Vol 3
Maximum Joy, "Stretch (Disco Rap Mix)"
Duchess Says, "Rabies (Baby's got the)', Anthologie des 3 Perchoirs
Holy Fuck, "Frenchy's", LP
Crystal Castles, "Vanished", S/T
Modeselektor, "Silikon (feat Sascha Pererra)", Hello Mom
MSTRKRFT, "Bounce (feat. N.O.R.E.)", Bounce EP

***


Duchess Says, "Tenen Non Neu", Anthologie des 3 Perchoirs

MSTRKRFT, "Bounce (feat N.O.R.E.)", Bounce EP


Duchess Says, live at the Marquee, shot by StolenDave. That's me yelling at Annie, telling her she's making me moist.

Ecouter et Repeter: Archivist

Ecouter et Repeter #1

It’s always difficult to be open and fair when it comes to writing about your friends. In the world of “serious” journalism, having an intimate connection to your subject is often poo-poohed (as is that word) and usually if something or someone is newsworthy, the story is passed on to someone who is unbiased towards the subject.

In the online world of blogs this kind of journalism is looked upon as more of a venal sin than a mortal one. I’ll take my contrition and tell you up front that I know the subject of this post. I met him years ago, before he was hobnobbing with some of Montreal’s best musicians and recording songs in a home studio. When I met Archivist, he was a basketball-playing-beat-poet reading university student. And I was smitten.

And so I am smitten once again.

It started with a cover he sent me of Xiu Xiu’s “Fabulous Muscles”.

It continued with a correspondence and eventually, an interview.

It doesn’t end with our discussion. It continues with a MySpace, a couple MP3s*, and hopefully, plays on your iPod.



How did the name Archivist come about?

I wanted a name that captured my sort of conscious pilfering of music of all sorts through the ages. Everything: John Jacob Niles to Morissey; Leadbelly to Kate Bush; Cohen to Panda Bear. I am forever cracked-up by this undying discourse of the original, and music seems to be so driven by this cult of the new, but really it's just this tiny self-reflexive and insulated world. I wanted to begin with the idea that music is highly conventional; as one man said, 'business as fucking usual.' It's a tissue of quotation, it appeals to a formulated sensibility in us, you know? And so, my stuff has a number of samples in it, 'field recordings,' accidental sounds; sort of autobiographical archives. Into this lust for moremoremore; the pervasiveness of irony; and this 'difference' that is really just shambling sameness, I wanted to kind of insinuate memory: remembering undifference. The archive is a funny machine. While it is essentially a mnemonic device it also actively writes history. Too, if not for the prosthetic memory of such archives as, say, the internet, perhaps memory as it has been understood prior to this late moment of postmodernity-- something experiential and internal-- would not be so threatened as it seems now to be. I want to be a watcher. I want to absorb ideas and present them sonically. But keeping in mind always that it's just my own little solipsistic stage.


Do you find it difficult to be from Montreal in times like these, when everyone from there has instantly (and perhaps without merit) become blog/critic worthy? Do you find the city to be conducive to being creative, perhaps moreso than the other cities you have lived in?

There is this late-Victorian novel by a fellow named George Gissing called New Grub Street. It's about the writing climate of the era. It details a London rife with writers, everybody clambering to succeed, crawling over friends and lovers for a place in the begloomed sun. Some of them are hacks, some of them are selling out. All of these ideas are still circulating. Musicians today who gnaw the bitter bone will tell you about the decline of the music scene, its superficiality. These criticisms are not new. There is a document from five-hundred B.C. that talks about how the world will end soon, the barbarians are at the gate, the next generation is monstrous and over-indulged, that people do not believe in anything and that the emperor is corrupted. These ideas aren't new. That being said. I like the climate. I like the creativity. There are so many talented people here, and in Toronto. I wish everyone could get at least one disc out, get heard. There was once a time when labels gave people three records to break before cutting them loose. (Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run was his third strike, for instance.) Things change. Everyone can record, everyone can launch their own album. Critics too work this way. Anyone can launch a blog, say what's on their mind. How many are looking to get pinned by a pitchfork right through their navels? Many, i wager. Is Montreal especially conducive to creativity? I don't know. I was having this conversation with a fellow whose band helped to break the scene here in Montreal, in 2004 or so, while i was living in New York. He said he'd be at concerts at Sala and suddenly the place was crawling with A & R guys. All in a matter of a month or so. I didn't know that Montreal. But then, on any given night you can walk into a bar on Bernard, or be walking down Parc of a sunday morning and see Jace from the Besnard's or Graham from Miracle Fortress or Murray from the Dears, and they're all making music you live to, and in that respect it's very surreal. New York will always have its Art Stars and their LES and Williamsburg folkies and avant garde performance artists, they will always have their geniuses. But Montreal has it's own little pocket of myth whose high water mark is a global measure (at least to certain nations of the leisure class, who have world enough and time to fret after Pop) and one which, I think, can no longer be considered sophomoric.

Do you work alone?

Yes. For the most part. I pen, perform and produce all Archivist music. I have had friends who play violin for me, or mouth organ here or there. Andrew Smith has done a couple of killer drum tracks for me, and of course I have an in-house bassist in Lisa Smith (of Pony Up fame –ed.), whose shown up on a track or so, and will likely be on more in the future. I like the work of development. I don't know what textures and arrangements will appear finally. I mean, this is perhaps an aspect of the name Archivist too. I can't help but privilege the recorded moment: the sharpening of space and time into a crystalized sonic event. But i like the creative work, and I am selfish for it, i want all of it, you know?


With the recording industry in the way it is, do you think it would be easier or harder to carve a career in music?

I'm not sure about this. I've spoken with people who have found it very difficult to make money with their bands, even if they've had relative success getting their name out. I'm quite certain some of it is who you know. But eventually, hopefully, it comes down to someone liking what you make. Will your music get out? Will it be well received? Who can say? Not if you choose the 'indie' route, which becomes ever less so politically charged as it once was, or not the same valence of political charge anyway. I do think there is more space on the margins. The peasants of the music industry will have their days in the sun. That being said, the initiates and the courtesans will be fewer. That's fine anyway. I think. It's always difficult, art as a career still makes my skin crawl, despite my understanding the pair are deeply imbricated.


Who would you like to work with?

I'm not sure. I'm not especially talented, and then there is always this question of what you could offer the other.

Having done already one cover, would you feel averse to recording other people's songs, or do they have to be your own, or at least, have a known connection to them?

I have one song I do called "Universe Questions," which is by a friend of mine from high-school. I just really like it and I get a bang out of performing it, so I will probably record it. But too I like working with other people's words. It's a reminder of sorts. You try and broach that liminal space between what some body else is trying to say and how it washes over your own person, experientially or whatever. Always this appropriation. I like that. So no, I do not feel averse to working with other people's stuff. It reminds one of the relationality of things; how everything is so metaphor sodden.

**

The Archivist lives, writes and loves in Montreal.


*MP3's for your listening pleasure

"Fabulous Muscles", by Archivist (Xiu Xiu Cover)
"For The Poetess", by Archvist

Rotate This: Uh Huh Her & The Clicks

Cat's out of the bag, I've tripped and fallen into the well of nostalgia. Halifax is great, but growing up on the periphery of Toronto has spoiled me. The more I fall in love with new bands, the deeper into a depression of what's-now-gone I sink.

Majority of the following acts I am about to list rarely, if ever, play here. But instead of waxing poetic on my adolescences spent sleeping on Yonge Street to catch a glimpse of Melissa Auf Der Maur signing autographs, nervously approaching Allison Wolfe post-Bratmobile's set, hanging out with The Donnas, tearing up the night after I got dumped at a Sleater Kinney show, watching my best friend Ashlee dance on-stage two nights in a row with Courtney Love singing "Mailbu" to her, I'll imagine a city where I can catch The Clicks open for The Cult. A booming metropolis where I can eat my little L Word-loving heart out at an Uh Her Her concert. Heck, even see the Peej (PJ Harvey) herself perform.

In Toronto's alt-weekly NOW, reviewer Sarah Liss aptly described The Clicks music as "what might happen if Chrissie Hynde and the Murmurs' Leisha Hailey fell in love, got Bowie to help out with insemination and gave birth to an indie rock love child."

I suppose I can't really complain; upcoming concerts on the horizon do include: Bob Dylan, The Sadies, The Constantines, Leonard Cohen and Sarah Slean. This afternoon I had a lovely chat with those darling fellas from The Coast on the night of their CD release "Expatriate" from a gig in Vancouver. Ian even sweetly asked about the fate of Oh, Beautiful! Majestic! Eagle!

For the record, we remain on hiatus (also known as no longer). In the upcoming weeks I am scheduled to chat with Leisha Hailey and Camillia of Uh Huh Her. Not to mention a highly anticipated record shopping spree in Toronto later this month. Rotate This and Sonic Boom look out, here she comes armed with a recently paid off Visa card in her pockets. I suppose I'm just being a bit brattish. The trouble is I'm a girl who wants everything. I want to bake, decorate and eat the entire cake - icing, cookie crumbs, ice cream and all.

Run children, run for your life!!

I'm in the mood for this #11
New releases #3

Weeks happen, time moves faster than you want it to and blogging goes by the wayside. Thankfully, I keep a record of certain things. Like last week's episode, as well as this week's. Two for the price of one. Scroll down for more. In the meantime, let's talk about what is one of the best (and most ambitious) singles I've heard in a long time.



My current fixation is the new single by Gnarls Barkley, called "Run". It sounds more like The Go! Team than a Gnarls Barkley, but then again, there is that unmistakable voice. When the duo broke out with "Crazy", everyone and their dog went apeshit over it. Pitchfork loved it, hip-hop fanatics loved it, music video stations loved it, bloggers went ape shit for it and even your mom liked it (hell I hear it on the CBCat least once a week on Sounds Like Canada during their Bleep segment.). The band released a few more singles and although they were good, none of them hit the high peak established by "Crazy".




The album, "The Odd Couple", is available now on iTunes and came out last week in retail stores. Due to a leak of the album, as well as all the buzz on the internet due to this single, the duo decided to release the album a few weeks earlier than it's original April 8th delivery date.

For once, I'm not upset about someone else's premature ejaculation.


March 25th, 2008.

Gianfranco Reverberi, "Nel Cimitiero del Ruscon"
Broken Social Scene, "I'm still your fag", You forgot it in people
Old Man Luedecke, "Hinterland", Hinterland
Beirut, "Cherbourg", The Flying Cup Club
Antony & The Johnsons, "I fell in love with a dead boy"
New Pornographers, "Challengers", Challengers
Doug Mason, "Local Culture", Invisible Star
Stolen Minks, "Boys on the floor", EP
Superfantastics, "Van Gogh", Choose your destination
Wolf Parade, "Shine a light", Apologies to the Queen Mary
Peter, Bjorn & John, "Object of my affection", Writers's Block
Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy", St. Elsewhere
Gnarls Barkley, "Run"
Skratch Bastid. Pip Skid & John Smith, "I ain't lazy", Taking care of business
Ruby Jean & The Thoughtful Bees, "Ameliaa Erahart"
Santogold feat Spank Rock, "Shove it (Switch Remix)"
Hot Chip, "Bendable, Poseable", Made In The Dark
Poni Hoax, "Antibodies (To The Bone Edit)"
Crystal Castles, "Untrust Us", S/T
Syntonics, "Rock2Nite"
Thunderheist, "Suenos Dulces"
Modeselektor, "Kill Bill Vol 4", Hello Mom
BoysNoize, "& Down (Boysnoize vs Siriusmo Remix)", Oi Oi Oi Remixed

The April Fool's edition

Gonzales, "Overnight", Solo Piano
Lou Barlow, "Royalty"
Great Lake Swimmers, "Where in the world are you?", Ongiara
Old Man Luedecke, "At The Airport", Hinterland
Old Man Luedecke, "Just Like a river", Proof Of Love
Rufus Wainwright, "Chelsea Hotel No. 2", I'm your man
Forest City Lovers, "Watching the streetlights grow", Haunting Moon Sinking
Grizzly Bear, "Knife", Yellow House
Portishead, "Plastic", Third
Wolf Parade, "I'll believe in anything", Apologies to the Queen Mary
Battles, "Atlas", Mirrored
Merryn Cadell, "Flight attendant", Angel food for thought
Tricky, "Tricky Kid", Grassroots
Buck 65, "Dirtywork", Cretin Hip Hop Vol 1
Sebastien Grainger, "When i go out"
Bjork, "Alarm Call", Homogenic
Radiohead, "15 steps", In Rainbows
LCD Soundsystem, "Thrills", LCD Sounsdystem
Duchess Says, "Tenen Non Neu", Anthologie des 3 Perchoirs
Hercules & Love affair, "Blind (Frankie Knuckles Remix)"
Spektrum, "Kinda New (Dirty South Remix)"

Gnarls Barkley, "Run", from "The Odd Couple"

Tigers II Men: JD & Johanna

Iconic feminist electro-punk band Le Tigre might have rocked roller skate jams for the "all the ladies and the fags, yeah." But it's JD Samson and Johanna Fatemen's whose latest project is strong enough for a man. The DJ duo Men, comprised of two women, are armed with super fly outfits -signature ball caps, stripes and polka dots - the DJ/remix/production established their masculine musicality in March 2007 with their all-female play lists, including 90s super single "I Saw the Sign."

Bust Magainze's annual "Men We Love," April/May '08 special hit newsstands last week. An exceptional interview by Alison Felman can be found with the duo. Or for a more retrospective insight into Le Tigre, check out Belletristic Impression's Q&A.

You've got fabulous muscles when you're disco dancin'

I'm in the mood for this#10
Cover Me #4
Disco is not a dirty word#4
Remember this? #3


It's amazing what can happen when you reconnect with people.



I sent an old friend a quick email, asking what he was doing. Apparently he's doing covers of Xiu Xiu and recording under the name of Archivist. For this latest installment of Cover Me, here he is with his cover of Fabulous Muscles.

I felt like re-visiting a little disco for this week's edition of "Moody Morning Music" as well as a bit of early 90's dance. First the disco:



I discovered Kebekelektrik by accident. I was at a record convention in Montreal digging through a box of old 45's when I saw this 45:



It looked interesting. The name sounded vaguely disco so for I picked it up for a buck. When I got home, I was stunned, not by the title track, "Mirage", but by the minute and a half of the B-side, titled "Star Dance". A couple of months later, I came across a copy of their first album, a US issue on SalSoul. I took it home, put the needle on the record and was blown away by its deep cosmic disco beauty. The last track, War Dance included the piece known as "Star Dance". The track is nothing more than pure disco deliciousness.

Another record I picked up by sheer curiosity was The Crown Heights Affair's first release, Dreaming A Dream



The opening and title track is featured twice on the album, once as a vocal the second in an instrumental disco version, featuring a hook-laden "doot doot doot doot" and a sweet little synth that takes you the early glory days of disco.

As for the early 90's dance pieces, I was flipping through some old records and felt the need to play some of them on my show.



Soul II Soul's first album, "Keep on Movin'" was one of the first albums that I bought that made me go, "Wow, this is what dance music could and should be." Admittedly, I was only 12 at the time the album came out, but the album's sound played a huge influence upon me and what I later came to enjoy and seek out in terms of dance music, especially the music which came from the UK and the scene in which the members, especially Jazzy B. and Nellee Hooper were involved, namely, The Wild Bunch.

A few years later, after the sound system based grooves of Soul II Soul had left the clubs, the new inhabitants, hungover from the post summer of love rave daze, were going more and more underground, digging into different genres (and record crates) for new sounds. The Future Sound of London found that sound in an old Dead Can Dance record.



Papua New Guinea was considered by many to be a milestone in the development and growth of underground dance music, as well as the rising popularity and acceptance of this new genre of dance music. The song almost feels like an anomaly when listening to some of FSOL's later works, namely, "We Have The Explosive", a track which went on to have a life of it's own a few years later.



Enjoy the show as well as the video links in the tracklisting.


Gonzales, "Overnight"
Laura Nyro, "Brown Earth", Christmas and the beads of sweat
Archivist, "Fabulous Muscles (Xiu Xiu Cover)"
Jane Siberry, "Slow Tango", City
Jennifer Warnes, "Fanous Blue Raincoat", Famous Blue Raincoat
Sunset Rubdown, "Winged/Wicked Things", Random Spirit Lover
Born Ruffians, "Red, Yellow, Blue", Red, Yellow, Blue
Forest City Lovers, "At The Border"
Superfantastica, "Turn on me", Choose your destination
Immaclate Machine, "Jarhand", Fables
Dog Day, "Oh Dead Life", Oh Dead Life EP
Sugarcubes, "Hit", 12"
Portishead, "Smell", Third
Buck 65, "The abandoned cars of INverness County", Cretin Hip Hop Vol 1
Soul II Soul, "Jazzie's Groove', Keep On Movin'
Future Sound Of London, "Papua New Guinea"
Massive Attack, "Unfinished Sympathy", Blue Lines
Goldfrapp, "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", Seventh Tree
Crown Heights Affair, "Dreaming A Dream (Disco)", Dreaming A Dream
Kebekelektrik, "War Dance", Kebekelektrik
Feist, "My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Remix)"

Soul II Soul"Back To Life", from Keep On Movin'

Punk lives.

Yes that's right, punk is dead
It's just another cheap product for the consumers head
Bubblegum rock on plastic transistors
Schoolboy sedition backed by big time promoters
CBS promote the Clash
Ain't for revolution, it's just for cash
Punk became a fashion just like hippy used to be
Ain't got a thing to do with your or me

Movements are systems and systems kill
Movements are expressions of the public will
Punk became a movement cos we all felt lost
Leaders sold out and now we all pay the cost
Punk narcissism was a social napalm
Steve Jones started doing real harm
Preaching revolution, anarchy and change
Sucked from the system that had given him his name

Jeffrey Lewis first heard Crass while attending university in 1993. Like a handful are able to, he was able to get past the shotty production quality, repetitive instrumentation (even for punk) and appreciate the band's radicalism, wit and uncompromising sound. Crass were one of those bands who's lyrics were intended to be read rather than heard.... until Jeffrey Lewis came along and recorded his album 12 Crass Songs. The album holds twelve acoustic rendititions with minimal backing musicians and vocalists. Although I've listened to Crass for about six or seven years now, going through recent phases of pure hatred towards them, mere appreciation for their lyrics only, and at first loving everything about them, I never truly appreciated this song until now. It's aggressive, sardonic punk rock idealism blended with Lewis' own hopefulness and sunny guitarwork. Lewis plays the bearer of bad news in place of Crass here. His version is much less alientating, which may finally make people appreciate what Crass had to say. Not everyone wants to be shouted at. They'd rather be told bad news from a gentle voice.

Jeffrey Lewis - Punk is Dead