The Weekly Froth - October #1

The Weekly Froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘Cut Chop Roll Skate’ by Eddie C

Love the drums at the start, and the percussion rack is send off the bench pretty quickly with more of all that coming in, giving you multiple tempos and rhythms. That’s basically true for the entire song by the way, even when other instruments have already started coming in. It’s not the drums themselves that change their pace, but it is the adding and substracting of other percussion elements that does that trick, which is quite clever. At about the two minute mark you get a nifty little guitar in, and about thirty seconds later there’s a pretty major change-up when first the bass comes in, and then the talky vocals, along with all the laser sounds you kind of remember from days of yore. Love the change-up at about 3:20, when all the instruments have to make way for that deep bass and that funky little guitar they throw in there. I just love stuff like this, it’s got an old school swagger to it that I really enjoy, especially when, ever so briefly, those horns come in at about 4:30. It’s got plenty of variety, loads of old school sounds, and they just give you that cool cat vibe that is just so nice.

 ‘If You Say So’ by Escort

Are you ready for the disco? Escort has been releasing some lovely disco tracks for some years now, and this one sounds even more throwback than a lot of the others. Not in the least because of it’s slow-to-mid paced tempo and the higher pitched vocals that anchor it. Naturally, there’s a little bass line that’s just catchy enough that you want to wiggle that body a bit, and the drum gives it a bit of an extra backbone in that regard. The lyrics, in good disco fashion, will ask you to Give it up, and they do so in a slightly dreamy, alluring fashion. At 3:20 most of the auxiliary sounds are stripped, leaving the drums to dictate the pace, which gives the illusion of the song speeding up. It’s a lovely, wistful disco tune, which fits the genre as a glove.

‘Happiness’ by Chris Malinchak feat. MNEK

I always like myself some Chris Malinchak, as this guy always manages to put the right amount of vibe into a track. Here, it’s not the thudding beat that does it, but it are the synths and, especially, those Soulful vocals. Yessir, capital S. If that voice doesn’t add some feel to this than I don’t know what does. Malinchak is never one to overcrowd his tunes, and here again he manages to let the vocals shine. He keeps the beat as the backbone, the synths for some extra flavor, and he adds some percussion that, in terms of tone, fit the rest of the track just right. At about the two minute mark he dials it down for a moment, leaving in some of that piano, before coming back to that beat again. It’s a short ride, barely clearing the three minute mark, but when it clears that mark with just the synth and those vocals you’ll only be thinking about how sweet it is, really.

‘Scale Those Heights’ by New York Endless

This one isn’t afraid to build it up, taking a while to get the full volume out there. But from about thirty seconds in you already start getting where this is going with that synth rhythm they put out there, and when the beat comes in as the backbone to this track it’s off and running. They go for that hypnotic vibe, but keeping a little bit of a raw edge to it. You’ve got the beat and that fast, simmering synth, but you also have that atmospheric synth that kind of floats over the track in its deep, whale-exhaling sound. At about the three minute mark you get a light, springy synth which changes that whole feel up though, and there’s some woodwork percussion for some extra rhythm. That deeper synth does come back in combination with the new synth sound, showing they can co-exist. At this point, every twenty seconds or so, they throw in some changes to get some slight variation going, and the second half of the track sure brings out the summer again. At the end, when the synths are kind of stripped away to make it easier to mix, you even get a good idea of how much percussion there was actually in there.

‘Pleasure Principle’ by THUMP (Eli Escobar remix)

Eli Escobar knows how to get stuff dancefloor ready, and from the get go you already get the feeling this track is just waiting to explode at any time, which happens thirty seconds in. Love the double vocals here, which get even more momentum because of that speedy beat that he has put underneath there. There’s also this lovely rhythm synth in there, and at 1:20 you get a delicious piano line which just completes the total house vibe of this track. In the mean time Escobar is still working the double vocals without any of those two actually doing any singing, but as a musical layer they do fit in really well with the beat and the piano and the like. At 2:35 he strips down some essentials up to the point where, around 2:50, even the beat is gone. But despite all that, you know it’s all coming back, and the first step he takes in that direction is bringing the synth back in. After that you finally get some actual vocals doing some actual singing, which gets accompanied by a singular kick beat. After a minute or so the whole works return, though slightly altered, now having a slightly more botched feel than the high paced beginning. That piano though, which gets re-introduced as well, that makes sure everything keeps being linked together. For those party people, this one.

‘Works Like Magic’ by YACHT

YACHT is really firing on all cylinders again, and here is yet another track by the duo. Although, apparently, this one is courtesy of not only Yona and Claire, but of the extended family as well. Surely, from the get go, they make use of the whole array of instruments they’ve got available, so in that sense it does sure sound like it. That what they do at about 0:30, to me that is so lovely, quirkily YACHT, and that is what keeps you wanting to come back to them as they always manage to throw that ball at you with that curve of theirs. It is a really short, but also really energetic and fast paced affair, never letting up and really throwing it all in there. So if you like your songs clean and streamlined, this is not the YACHT tune that will put an end to that craving. However, if you like it slightly chaotic, with loads of little fun elements that come together like all those one hundred ideas you get when you let some kids try and organize the school dance, then this will get you flailing your arms about while jumping or dancing around, no doubt.