Oniris ‘The Rebirth/Leaving Earth’ EP – Review on Pulse
This EP from Oniris is stunning! Hit the quote.
This EP from Oniris is stunning! Hit the quote.
FACT are currently doing an exhibition focusing on music videos, soemthing that runs till Sunday 26th May but with the weather being like it is now, probably as far as I’m willing to leave my flat this weekend (I live right by it). Part of the exhibition focuses on the history of dance, and so in honour this week’s Five for the Funk is all about dance music videos.
Don’t worry, none of the ones here are included at FACT (although artists and directors are, creativity in the realms doesn’t appear to be that spread out) and I’ve also thrown some love to one or two that aren’t particularly arty. And one that is just awful. Enjoy!
The Chemical Brothers ‘Star Guitar’
Whilst director Michel Gondry is rightly lauded for his masterpiece effort on Daft Punk’s ‘Around the World’ (featured at FACT), he took the same principle of focusing on the components of a dance music record to create this lush video for Star Guitar. The terrain and passing vehicles are among the visual juxtapositions that reference each introduction of sound the record weaves in.
It’s a delightfully subtle counterpart to the Chem’s stage shows of blistering audio-visual bombast as well, reflective of the fact the track itself was much more languid than their previous offerings. A thoroughly hypnotizing opus that flips the challenge possessed in visualising instrumental music.
Basement Jaxx ‘Where’s your head at’
Taken from round about the same time as Star Guitar, this riotous slab of loon-house simply wouldn’t have worked with a subtle and deft video. So they go for an absolutely nuts one, involving the fusion of pop stars with monkeys to create a musician/hominoid abomination. You could argue there is a meaning to all this as some critique of the music industry, but the best thing to do is just watch it and embrace the madness.
This is never going to win any awards, either as a record or as a video, but this sums up the mainstream Ibiza experience of the 90s in a nutshell. A scantily clad Morales boards a train on which he sees Sonique and Judge Jules, and then proceeds around the island via villas, couples kissing on the beach and, of course, DJing at Pacha. The track is just incessant sunshine as well, not as raw as ‘The Bomb‘ but an undeniable summertime anthem. But he’s running a lot? What is it about dance music videos and running?
He remade it two years later with a vocal and a new video, this time eschewing those red trunks for an awful ribbed white long sleeved t-shirt, but it wasn’t the same. In fact the only remake worth watching is this one.
From the sublime to the insane and the feel-good, to the just downright horrendous. I’ll admit it, as an eighteen year old slowly putting puberty behind me I loved this record, but even then I was pretty baffled by the video. We see a DJ with terrible hair and even worse headphones sitting off by a public landmark, one can only assume this is pop-trance maestro Darude. Then a girl runs out with a silver briefcase clasped in her hand, only to be chased by a bald man and another woman. They all look like they’re dressed like lifeguards.
The chase goes on, occasionally interspersing the shots with barking dogs, Darude looking cool inside a car with some lime green wraparound shades and a series of brilliant slow motion snippets of them jumping. None of it ever relates to any rhythmic structure of the music, they do slow down slightly in the breakdown only to start running again before the beat kicks in again, and finally the bald man catches up his prey only to be double crossed by his partner who leaves him for dead on a train track. There’s always people running as well; why?
The two women skip off, yes skip, together hand in hand to be met by Darude at a private yacht, where they are seen lounging back with him in a brief pimp like clinch. Is the briefcase Darude’s record collection? The cure for cancer? Marsellus Wallace’s soul? Nope, it’s just evidence of electronic music’s capability to occasionally avoid creativity.
When this was originally released on Soma records in 1995 few would of predicted the position we would be in now, where a 13 second loop and a photo of two helmets can send the internet into raptures. However Daft Punk and of course Virgin behind them clearly recognised the bigger picture when installing Spike Jonze to direct this video accompaniment to the tough as you like house hip-hop hybrid. In the process, they’ve created arguably the greatest video accompaniment the most visually entrancing electronic music act ever made.
What makes it so enduring is the almost complete irrelevance the music plays to the track. The only link is the fact it’s playing from the boom-box of the protagonist, a human with a dog’s head called Charles. Said radio prevents Charles from following a potentially romantic get-up with an old friend he meets in a shop, but the total ambiguity about what it represent symbolises that even at an early stage, Daft Punk understood that restraint was the best way to create mystique – leaving a sea of questions rather than shaping the answers. Take note Darude.
The FACT exhibition runs up until Sunday 26th May. Full details here.
Dave Seaman and Steve Parry are launching a brand new record label entitled Selador, with music forthcoming from Samu.l, Shall Ocin and Bushwacka!’s new alias Just Be, among others. Promising upfront house and techno across the spectrum, the debut release from Samu.l is a dreamy slice of deep house goodness complete with recognisable sample, which shows a very modern and dynamic twist for the music you might usually expect from Parry and Seaman.
What’s really exciting though is the way they are funding the first compilation release; via Kickstarter. The above video explains how to get involved, but essentially you put in for a project with differing levels of involvement. The more you pledge, the more you get out, but if they don;t secure the moolah needed the project never gets off the ground, so you only get charged if it goes ahead. Although this has been pursed in other angles of the music business, this is the first time it’s been put to the test in dance music.
With mix compilations not only under threat from piracy but the abyss of internet available DJ mixes clouding the market, it’s a measure which could change the make-up of the way this concept develops, or even add longevity to a market that is no doubt struggling in recent years. Head here for details on how to pledge.
Can Kendrick get any better? Yes, yes he can. This remix delivers the storyline of rap’s new king coming up in four minutes and three verse, all set to the backdrop of the most palpable beat on ‘Good Kid Maad City‘. First up Kendrick delivers a verse about the ease at which he’s entered hip-hop’s high end stratosphere, notably the ‘upper echelons’ as he calls it. Then Jay-Z turns up, delivers a brilliant verse for this remix (even if he is following certain Kanye delivery techniques now) before Kendirck gets back on the mic and absolutely lets rip.
The way he flips the languid stylings he drops on the original to the grimy aggression best served on ‘Backstreet Freestyle’, he absolutely murders the track. He leaked this week that Jay’s verse sent him back to the lab, and the result is he doesn’t just go toe to toe with him, but steps above. The track was leaked at SSXW (where the hottest shows in town were all three of Kendrick’s gigs) and has since been doing the round on youtube and soubndcloud with an image of a young Kobe Bryant breathless against a calm and sincere Michael Jordan, seemingly imparting advice. How apt can you get?
They keep lashing the hype on this young boy and he keeps rising to it at every juncture. The way he pays his dues as well, hooking in Mc Eiht, Dre’s ministerial overlording and now Jigga, it’s similar to the way Em did the rounds during the Slim Shady era on Rawkus and the mixtapes (back when they were really underground). Yet he knows it’s his time to go against them competitively, getting in the booth and cutting their head off, as he puts it in Acclaim Magazine. God knows how good his next album is going to be…
Cazrface, the partnering up of Inspektah Deck from Wu and 7L & Esoteric, is a fictitious comic book character returning to the golden era of hip-hop. Those last four words are probably the most mooted in hip-hop circles, and it’s even more surprinsing that the year in question isn’t before 1993… instead it’s 1999.
It would seem odd that a member of Wu would be behind that assertion, even with his best album appearing that year (as well as the only real post wu tang forever masterpiece, Ghostface’s ‘Supreme Clientele’), but nevertheless there is a grain of truth in 1999 being the don year wise… and one I’ll visit with a stronger analysis in the future.
Anyway the album is a beast, not exactly the greatest lyrics ever but still tight with some fantastic beats, and some decent guest appearances as well. In the 1999 vein Ghostface turns up and mumbles like only he can, and Preemo delivers a textbook production, but it’s not all 20th century doyens. Action Bronson and Roc Marciano bring some heat too. Check it on Spotify below
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Excellent article form j-live which analyses the way hip-hop means different things to different people of ages. I’ve never really got the likes of Trouble Funk, Treacherous Three and Kurtis Blow even though I love disco, and whilst getting my face melted by PE, gawping at Rakim or Kane’s lyrics or just basking in the eternal glory that is everything about Slick Rick, De la’s ‘3 Feet High’, NWA’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and nigh on everything done by Run DMC doesn’t go above very good in my eyes.
My generation of hip-hop is very much 1992+, and as well versed as I am in the music before then less and less of it hits me the way that the music form that period does. Likewise with everything after about 2002… you’d be completely right if you said the aforementioned Three Foot High or even Kanye’s ‘my dark twisted fantasy’ was more of an influential and worthier piece of art than say Black Moon’s ‘Enta Da Stage’, but I know which one I’d rather lash on.
Anyway; read what J-Live has to say. Essential reading for anyone digging hip-hop at any point.
The Sugababes done gone did Kendrick. And it’s really good!
Luke Solomon and Derrick carter’s Classic records have just put out a new video for the Marc Ashken and SOS track Cat Walk, which is as delightfully weird as the track itself. Dig in 🙂