Things I Cannot Stop Listening To

Okay, at least give me credit for trying to get back into a regular update schedule. Once in a while when I don’t really have that much to say opinion-wise, I’m going to do this little thing where I just list off a bunch of stuff that I really, really like right now. This week–hell, this month, this year, this everything–I am obsessed with:

Mariah Carey – “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time (Designer Drugs Remix)”
Okay, seriously, Designer Drugs. Can you guys like…fuck off? You’re too damned good at what you do. Every remix is a killer, every original track just pounds the shit out of everything else I get into when they drop. You’re literally killing my entire collection of mixes just by existing. By simply not ceasing to exist, you force me–force me–to include you in every single mixtape that I throw together. Stop it. Just fucking stop it. Do one shitty track. Just one, enough to make me stop thinking of you two as some sort of terrifying dancefloor gods.

Deerhunter – Microcastle
Every album that Deerhunter release just gets better and better. I mean, okay, their debut Turn It Up Faggot was pretty lousy. I mean, really lousy. But then last year they plunked Cryptograms down in front of me and said “Eat it, bitch” and I was hooked. Microcastle heads for a more straightforward pop sound without losing the band’s noisier edge. Absolutely one of the year’s best albums.

Mansion
No particular track (no albums yet either), just…Mansion. Their music is like old-school house music blended with the current trend of harder electro and fidget sounds. They single-handedly saved MSTRKRFT’s “Bounce” from becoming a tired, over-used mix staple into a truly bouncy (see what I did there? Wokka wokka wokka.) house track that comes close to surpassing the original. They did this, of course, by eliminating most of N.O.R.E.’s questionable rhymes, while retaining the bulk of Thunderheist leading lady Isis’ woefully uncredited vocal contributions. And speaking of Thunderheist…

Thunderheist
Expect the mighty VanHeisten to make an appearance on every single one of these lists for the conceivable future. I can’t get enough of these kids, and their recently released “Jerk It” EP is probably one of my favorite dance records of the year. So fucking good.

Tim and Eric – Awesome Record, Great Songs
As a big fan of “Tom Goes To The Mayor” and “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” you can imagine my excitement when I found out that they’d released an album compiling almost all of the music from the latter. Having a hard copy of “Sports!”, “I Sit Down When I Pee”, “Time Travel”, “Here She Comes”, “Beaver Boys”, and “Pizza Boy” (sung by the imitable and awesome David Cross) makes it one of the oddest things I could possibly call one of my favourite albums of the year. And it is. It’s just that awesome. Plus the bonus stuff tacked onto the end is, at least for the time being, a rather neat novelty. Especially the tracks featuring The Shins and Built To Spill, and the remix of “One For Pep Pep” by… Flying Lotus!?

AC Slater – Jack Got Jacked
Sampling the house classic “Can You Feel It?” by Mr. Fingers, “Jack Got Jacked” takes its source material’s instantly recognizable vocal part and turns it into a hard-hitting “fuck you” you dance music elitists. Where Mr. Fingers’ original featured a lengthy spoken word vocal that came to be considered the very definition of house music, New York DJ AC Slater turns it into a simple, short snarl:

“In the beginning, there was Jack, and Jack had a groove–”
*sound of several gunshots*
“Fuck Jack. Jack got jacked.”

Couple that with the driving, heavy-handed instrumental, and you have what is absolutely one of the year’s best individual dance tracks.

Santogold – “Creator”
It took me a while to really “get” Santogold. This track was what finally did me in, and won me over to her side. Twisting dubstep, dancefloor bangers and her intense (and at times, slightly bizarre) vocals into a hefty, sharp-toungued cocktail of awesome. That said, however, I am still sort of stuck on what to say about the rest of her self-titled solo debut.

~ by heccubus on October 30, 2008.