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: ‘Loner’ by Mykki Blanco feat. Jean Deaux

The track starts out with some stabbing synths, haunting vocals in the back, before Mykki Blanco comes in firing and guns blazing, announcing he is going Grizzly in the head. The chorus features the singing, courtesy of Jean Deaux, hitting home that I’m alone, so alone, I’m a loner. The synths indicate the start to the chorus, though it is the drum and other percussion that lead the rest of the way. After they have fired all their rounds, the synths come back in, giving it that lighter touch that goes really well with the track. In that sense, the drum, the synths, the singing, and the rapping all balance each other out into what, for me, is a great song. Coming from someone who rarely listens to someone rapping twice, that’s about as good as it gets really. So, hurry up now, before I take it back all blushing and embarrassed.

‘Und Da Stehen Fremde Menschen’ by Michael Meyer & Barnt

Lets get those house sounds in right from the get go, taking up the characteristics of the genre with that beat and that delicious bass synth to get jackin’ to. More and more atmospherics are poured in though, as if they first lured you onto the dancefloor, to then hook you with the feel of the track. Until, at about the two minute mark, as at that point you’re only hearing your heartbeat. That lasts for a reasonable while, before the detached vocals sing in German that Und da stehen fremde menschen, and then something else. Then the track first lets you go through some 80s computing sounds, an Atari tilting I reckon, before they bring back da house at the 3:30 mark with the bass and kick. I love how he then starts to slide the atmosphere in again, starting at about 4:10, and then adding those hypnotic vocals singing the title line of the track. Released on the always interesting !K7 label.

 ‘Far Away from A Distance’ by Simian Mobile Disco

Simian Mobile Disco are back, moving to the depths with the beat that they’re starting this one out with. The electro engineering sounds that come in at the 18 second mark, as well as the more woodwork percussion sounding rhythm bit, juxtapose it slightly, though not bringing it out of deepness entirely. At the minute mark they up the tempo, a fast drum sets the pace along with all kinds of quick synth work, giving you the nighttime angst right there. The lads keep that up for a while, though around 2:10 they steady out, moving it more towards the rhythm side of it all. At the three minute mark they’ve dialled it all the way down, even removing the rhythm parts. That’s where the build up starts, lasting a minute or so, before diving back into the deep beat and getting the dancefloor working again. The single has just been released, so you can snatch up a copy plus remix right about now … (check it out now).

‘Be There’ by SWIM

This one starts out with a wall of chilly synths, though about ten seconds in the bass enters the scene to provide the steady rhythm, with some percussion work to help out a bit. There are some haunty sounds giving you the atmospherics, and a little synth riff as lighter sound as well. Then the vocals come in, dreamy and alienated. When the vocals stop, a new little synth riff is added on top of a steady drum, which then is replaced by the bass again as the vocals start, singing that they want to Be there, and announcing that they want To care. Even so much so that they basically strip everything aside from the vocals for just a second, then moving back to the bass and synth to ride this one out. It has a nice nocturnal feel to it, both in terms of feel, pace, and it’s approach, giving you something for that midnight train to Georgia.

‘IM U’ by Beacon (Tomas Barfod remix)

Beacon has some help from Tomas Barfod to start this one out deep and dirty, and the grainy industrial sound that comes in at about the twenty second mark only moves it further into those depths. To juxtapose that, the vocals soon appear, providing a certain light in the darkness. There’s a nice bass to keep it steady, and I love those almost ghostly sounds (which is no reference to the label at all) that move through the song, which then get a brief relief from the vocals, doing a little Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha line. At the 2:20 mark Barfod strips it down, after which the track primarily goes for some harsher percussion sounds, giving it a different tone than at the start. Barfod then builds it up again until just before the four minute mark, when he lets the vocals soften it up as it starts moving to the end of the track. Barfod, again, shows his feel for both tone and percussion, which he proves year in year out with WhoMadeWho but definitely also solo as well, for example with the ace ‘Happy’ (if you’ve never heard that one before, be sure to give it a whirl).

’S_Balkavuk’ Ilya Santana instr. edit

This one starts out like a clockwork, but then, ten seconds in, there is the bass and the wobbly synth sound riffing it up. And it’s all on the up from there, adding little touches and sounds before the vocals come in all dressed in that disco choir fashion. After that, there’s a short prelude to the next dancing bit, with a bit of drums doing their little thing, but soon the bass comes in again, this time accompanied by a variety of horns that start getting it down. Around the two mark there’s another stop moment, but this time it’s a really brief one, and by the time 2:30 rolls by that bass is dictating the boogie again, soon being helped out by those vocals that re-enter the scene. Ilya Santana always knows how to get that groove in place, and though he gives it a twist with sounding a bit more disco and with those little pitstops scattered throughout the song, it definitely is on display here again as well. It’s an exotic free download for sure.

Caribou – Dan Snaith and cohorts – is a band on a real high.  Their previous album, ‘Andorra’, was awesomely confident, combining lo-fi sensibility and folk tunes with a live performance that mowed down everything in its path.  The album version of keystone single ‘Melody Day’, was haunting and lovely. The live version was another matter, the band unleashing something seriously primal on stage.  They toured with two drummers downstage, one kit featuring Dan Snaith when not playing guitar and/or keyboards and singing, and the other kit force of nature, Brad Weber.  Their live presence was honed over the course of a mammoth tour, and the final gig at the 2008 Green Man Festival was a highlight of the year, Snaith and Weber ending the show standing on their kits pounding the skins as though conjuring dark forces in exchange for their souls.

Once you’ve reached a climax that cathartic, where do you take your music next?  I freely admit that my heart sank a little when I pressed play on ‘Odessa’, the first track on new album ‘Swim’, and realised Dan Snaith has turned to dance for his answer.

‘Odessa’ – although who could dislike a band with a penchant for naming their songs after exotic-sound places for no apparent reason – is a divisive opener.  It has a killer riff, but it lacks the irresistible energy of Caribou’s best songs.  It also sounds disconcerting like the mid-90s Orbital of ‘In Sides’, an album to which time has not been kind.  The video is all elliptical snowy road trip scenes, filtered through smoke, reflections and lens flare, a fitting analogy for the music which is slight but insistent, masking emotion behind a frosty vocal and crispy beats backed by vibrato flute and keyboard riffing.  The vocal is the main problem here.  By standardising his voice, Snaith seems to have sacrificed a crucial distinctiveness that made ‘Andorra’ so compelling, although the chorus “She can sing, she can sing…” is hard to forget.

‘Odessa’ is still, on balance, a quality track, but ‘Sun’ heads a lot further down the wrong route, to all intents and purposes a gloss on Orbital’s ‘The Girl With the Sun in Her Head’.  It’s hard to justify any more trippy songs based around repeating “Sun, sun, sun, sun, sun…” It’s not a shorthand for acid-drenched good times, it’s just lazy and annoying.  Then ‘Kaili’… Snaith, what have you done?  Surely the whole album can’t be like this, a succession of trudging, blissed-out keyboard riffs with all the effects buttons pressed at once, and the vocals strangled by a vocoder?

Things start to look up a little with ‘Found Out’, with the vocals more up front and the beats more inventive, and the organ weirder and psychedelic.  It also gets up off its arse, and generates a little momentum, building tempo and distortion, taking the listener with it rather than lying on the grass, staring at the clouds and ignoring everyone.

Then there’s ‘Bowls’, which appears to reference the Tibetan singing, rather than the lawn variety.  It’s an instrumental track that sounds like a small army of crickets route-marching through a cymbal shop.  It has a distinctly Buddhist atmosphere, temple bells playing counterpoint to turntable flickers and clicks.  It’s really rather fantastic, light as a prayer flag but laying down a serious, unrelenting groove.  This is more like it: the real Caribou hallmarks are here, music you didn’t know you needed and won’t be able to do without.

And we’re off, with what sounds like a jug tune introducing ‘Leaving House’, then tin can percussion and a mysterious, menacing falsetto vocal that seems to be telling someone that it’s time to go.

‘Hannibal’ is a delightful track, the album’s highpoint, which employs a detuned piano, a muted horn section and an infectiously bouncy bass to irresistible effect.  It’s a shame Caribou can’t maintain the standard throughout, but this track alone makes the album worthwhile.  Rather than feeling the need to tick tedious dance boxes, ‘Hannibal’ brings a smile to your face through unrestrained inventiveness and silliness.  By the time the vocals arrive at 5.05mins, we’re ready for anything.

‘Jamelia’, the final track, isn’t a million miles from ‘Odessa’ but works better because it gives more space to Dan Snaith’s singing, while retaining capacity to surprise with it bursts of church organ, and sad melodies oscillating through a valve wireless.  The whole song has the acoustics of an illicit cassette recording taking from the radio and played down the telephone.

‘Swim’ refers to the new, liquid sound that Caribou attempt to create on this album.  Sacrificing the characteristic ‘Andorra’ sound is a brave, but necessary move, but through much of this album Dan Snaith has thrown too much away.  ‘Swim’ is best when it still sounds like Caribou, and surprising bad when it falls into the trap of imitating others.  Listen to this, for sure, but skip tracks 2-4 for a guaranteed satisfaction.