saw me and you and everyone we know about a week ago, following a few recommendations and thought it was pretty good. a few scenes were great. it pissed me off that they referenced a number of portland locales while the movie was clearly filmed in LA. how many palm trees have you seen in laurelhurst park?

one of the best things about the movie was the score, brought to you by michael andrews, who also created the mostly forgettable donnie darko score. i don't have any tracks to post, and i'm not sure they would stand on their own anyway. all i can offer is an allmusic-style stab at the mood: lazily unsettled. (the actual allmusic page lists the following adjectives: Ominous, Melancholy, Intimate, Brooding, Elegant, Wistful, Lush, Cathartic, Whimsical, Eerie.) definitely worth watching if you can't find anything else in the video store.

...the original version of madonna's hung up is (way?) better than the stuart price remix. i think the problem is that a lot of the vocals are missing from the remix. the original had great vocals, a deep beat, and that awesome loop that makes the song. if it's going to be remixed, it needs to have something added rather than taken away.

i think a dearth vocals is also related to the fact that i like the richard x remix of new order's jet stream lover song better than the jlc version.

quote of the week:

... This all hinges on the assumption that the Pitchforkization of dance music discourse (or the dancification of Pitchfork discourse) has done something awful to dance music discourse and, consequently, dance music itself. This itself rests on the assumption that Pitchfork's pitchforkiness (i.e. corny indie fuxxiness) perserveres despite its critical warming toward dance music, and in effect "conquers" dance music under the banner of corny indie fuxxx.

—tim finney, this ilm thread

a couple of months ago i was really tempted to write a post about how ewan pearson had just been on fire, completely owning this year remix-wise. i held off though, and i'm kind of glad i did... i was kind of obsessed with some of his remixes for a while, and i get kind of myopic when i'm like that. but i was thinking about him again while listening to his new mix (sci.fi.hi.fi. vol 1), and as good as he's been—which is quite good—there have been so so many great remixes, and remixers, that i've heard this year that that hypothetical lauding seems completely ridiculous. i mean, just look at the list:

people who've consistently dropped bombs this year/last year: jacques lu cont et al, justice, trentmøller, eulberg, vitalic, richard x, rex the dog, tiefschwarz, linstrøm & prins t, m.a.n.d.y. / booka etc, freeform five, the dahlbacks, moonbootica, koze, mayer, superpitcher...

good god damn! and that's just the high points, my prospective best songs of the year list is nearly half remixes.

question: how does the remix culture of dance music conflict with/validate the rockist/autuerist aesthetic? or to specify the question further: does the idea of remixing strengthen the idea of a definitive take on a song, or fundamentally refute it? at one point i would have said that it totally trashed it, but now i am not so sure...

during the past week i was (re)introduced to two songs that have already risen to the top of my most played list - both caught my attention in diplo mix albums.

appearing somewhere amidst the madness of the M.I.A./diplo collab. piracy fund's terrorism, ll cool j's headsprung is a better than average timbaland production, maybe one of my favorite ever. i can't believe i didn't pay more attention to this when it was getting radio play. if you missed the boat too, here's your chance to make things right.

the other track is somewhat more obscure, showing up on the phenomenal first track of the hollertronix never scared mix. the artist: debbie deb (never heard of her). the track: lookout weekend.

david byrne's broadcast (ie unpodly podcast) looks pretty discotastic this month. there's even some zapp and roger in there for owen.

check out brent d's best album covers ever. so many covers, every one of them beautiful... too bad the captions are mostly worthless.

this album has been getting a lot of love in the pop nerdosphere this year. i listened to it a few months ago and thought it was really good, but then basically forgot about it in the cascade of shit with which i pathologically inundate myself. this past week though, oh my god. sasha's link to some of her videos spurred me to put it on again, and holy crap. i must have listened to it twenty times through since last monday. it is amazing, everything i want in an album and rarely find (it is currently battling it out with the mountain goats for my alb of the year).

as usual, jess is better at stating my opinions that i am, so just go read his old post, every word is the got-damned truth.

holy shit, nick sylvester is completely whacked out of his head. so ridiculously funny.

i must have found scotch's mirage on the ilm ysi thread, 'cause i can't imagine where else i would have stumbled upon it. italo-disco (lite), with a fucking killer chorus. anyone have any idea what they're saying? i have never heard of scotch, but i want to find out more about them after hearing this song. so far i only have this picture:



also, dude in the yellow suspenders looks disturbingly like my stat-mech prof. so hot.

brilliant. so so much better than my giorgio. i am jealous.

last night i had a dream that john darnielle's next release was a box set of his "island remixes" of the entire led zeppelin back catalogue, and that it was the most critically lauded release of the year. i think that's an even more ingenious idea that the previous night's ricotta cheese ice cream (mmmm). though i was told that that really exists as an italian desert of some kind. so here's to hoping for the remixes...