The Weekly Froth!

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:  ‘Montgomery Clift’ by Ajello feat. Jyoti

This one starts lovely with that beat and those drums, that gets the shoulders swinging no doubt. Then you get this lovely synth sound in there, and you’re in party mode from the get go. Leave that to the Italians of Ajello, who know how to do this. After the minute mark you get both the bass in as well as the vocals, courtesy of Jyoti, though the synths keep the pace up as well. Add some light percussion in there too, and you know you can get freaky with this. After some more rhythmic delivery, at 2:10 the actual singing starts, giving it some nice diva disco element as well, singing that she thinks that she’s Done it again. It’s got this nice Italian-dance-it-better feel, with a bit of that attitude and fun. At about 3:20 you have basically this percussion-shoot-out with some bass groove thrown in there, with later a guitar coming up as well. And so they just throw it all in there like a big bowl of Jambalaya for that festive, colour-popping party feel. But they also know when to change the pace a bit, like they do at about 4:20, half a minute later coming back with primarily drums and percussion. It’s just this crazy mixture of all these things that somehow come together and that somehow all add to the party. Now, Montgomery Clift, for those not in the know, is one of those Hollywood actors who changed the face of masculinity around the James Dean era. Like James Dean he was method, like James Dean he was good friends with Elizabeth Taylor, and like James Dean he slept with men. Unlike Dean, he actually survived his car crash. And, just to return to the track, those whispery vocals in the seventh minute add just that little bit of cheekiness to it to round it all off.

‘So Good’ by Tuxedo (Dimitri In Paris remix)

I love me some Dimitri In Paris. The guy knows how to get the disco and funk in, and his edits are always build around dancing and fun. This one has got some soulful vocals by Mayer Hawthorne, who is one part of Tuxedo. The more hipperdy-hop vocals  are by Jack One, which give you some of that slick '90s feel. They sing that it all Feels so good to me, it’s where I want to be. The track is perhaps a bit less full-on disco than you’d normally encounter in a Dimitri in Paris set, veering more to the catchy pop side of the spectrum. Let me put it this way, it’s one of those things that I feel I’d could be hearing on primetime radio alongside all those major artists doing that funk-dance-pop thing in the past years. Also helped by the vocals, which are less 70s and more a nu/90sR&B hybrid. This track is enormously easy on the ear, and has got this sitting-at-the-beach-with-a-boombox-in-summer characteristic to it.

‘In Films’ by Chromatics

Chromatics are one of those bands that I just adore. All these tracks just have so much atmosphere, and an atmosphere that I tremendously love at that. This one has a nice, throbbing beat that keeps the pace up on this one (as much as it gets up on a Chromatics album), and of course you have these dreamy, lovelorn vocals that come in on top of it. Naturally, there are the synths that are so key to the Chromatics’ sound, and here some synth sounds also double as a vocals substitute (as in, when she stops singing, those synths come in). These have a nice, euphoric feel to them, kind of contrasting the voice a bit. Next to those, obviously, you’ve got the rhythm synths that double track the drums. This really sounds like a lead single to me. Because of the pace, the catchiness it kind of has, and the euphoric chorus synth that Johnny Jewel uses. New album coming, and everyone in the world’s stoked about that (at least, the part that knows of this band’s existence). Also, the following two things: A) Free download, and B) lyrics posted in the info section on SoundCloud.

‘Mouth’ by Ghost Culture (Shan & Gerd Janson club mix)

Let’s jack it up with this one, immediately starting out with those house sounds for those midnight-clubbin’-freaks. You’ve got the beat, the bass synth, and a lighter synth sound as the core sounds, on top of which the vocals come in after the one minute mark. The vocals are rhythmic and talky, providing even more structure to dance to. I love the beat on this one, and how it just kind of spurs the track at those moments where the vocals stop for a minute. The vocals sound a bit absent-minded, which lend a nice vibe to this track. I’m always a pretty big fan of Gerd Janson and his house sounds, and here, again, he shows along with Shan that he knows how to get that house sound in the club. It’s a four minute clip, but definitely something I’d be dancing to when played in it’s entirety in the discotheque.

‘X’ by TB (Italo Deviance Disco Version)

The start has quite the kick in it, and when the vocals come in you immediately hear this kind of space-like feel. Not long after you get the bass to go with the space, and this track is starting to warm up, building and building some momentum with those core sounds. After about 1:30 you get a bit of a rest, with the space sounds and vocals taking over, but at the 1:50 mark they come back with a vengeance, this time fronted by some punk-like vocal delivery as the beat returns. The narrative is about voices from outer space I do believe, and it gets this kind of '70s feel meets the Berlin underground clubs. Lots of black make-up and strobes, that’s what I’m seeing here. Naturally, this Italo Deviance Disco Version knows how to use a beat to get some dancing done, and that nifty bass (just listen around 4:30 for a good example of that) helps out a bit as well.

‘The Seed’ by The Revenge

The Revenge starts this one with a man saying “Here we go”, then applause, and in the mean time the beat and drums are moving it forward, though the real house sounds come in at about 35 seconds with that typical bass jack-it-up sound. There’s a certain deepness in the beat as well, which gets juxtaposed by some of the almost jazzy ditty lines that you can hear in the background to keep this one from becoming just a mechanical club thing. Just after the two minute mark you get a synth sound that slowly starts moving to the front, arriving there around 2:20 to become a major player in this one. Halfway through you get a voice saying “here we go”, though that is about the only vocal thing that is happening in this track. The Revenge almost always delivers a quality piece, and this one is another one of those with a nice, deep house sound with a few change-ups and a few auxiliary sounds in there that all make it worth your while.