Caught in the Net - One good track does not an album make
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Your support makes all the difference.I was fairly unmoved by Chromeo's 2007 LP Fancy Footwork: it seemed a Hall & Oates inspired electrofunk pop pastiche too far (the Canadian duo even performed with Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates at this year's Bonnaroo festival); though plenty who know better than me seemed to like it. Chromeo (below) now have a new album on the way called Business Casual, released in September, and a new track from it emerged this week. Listen to a stream of "Don't Turn The Lights On" at chromeo.net. I actually quite like this one. It's suitably knowing and cheesy, yet great fun. But one decent track doesn't sway me fully: I don't think I'll stick with a whole album like this.
...and not a guitar lick in sight
Flailing around for a term to make this music-writing lark easier, I suppose this would fall into the "dream pop" category. Blonde Redhead have unveiled "Here Sometimes", the first song from their upcoming album Penny Sparkle (released in September). The Fader (ind.pn/ aYEeOZ) accurately calls it "digital bliss": for the new track the New York trio have eschewed guitars for soft beats and a wash of synths and keyboards, with a lovely hushed vocal rolling over the top. Down-load the track for free when you sign up to the band's mailing list at blonde-redhead.com.
Killing me softly with this song
There have been some interesting music videos in recent weeks: For Interpol's new song "Lights", they've gone for a slow-motion performance art meets sinister medical experiment clip. It's quite strange. Download the video at interpolnyc.com. Meanwhile, Robyn has a rather cool slinky electro track at the moment called "Killing Me". Last week she put out an impressive graphics-based interactive video for the song, which allows Twitter and Facebook users to insert messages (vent your ire about whatever is killing you) into the track using the hashtag, #KILLINGME. See it at robyn.com/killingme; apparently you also need 3D glasses for the full effect.
Danger Mouse liaisons
Last week New York Magazine's excellent website got super-producer Danger Mouse, to put together his "endless summer" playlist, ind.pn/cTEfG8. An epic affair, it features 170 songs – old, new and all things tasteful. One commentator was in sarcastic mood: "you could just put on LCD Soundsystem's 'Losing My Edge' and be done with about 75 per cent of this..." They made it available on iTunes but only US users could access it. Thankfully several people, including blogger Nialler 9, put together versions of the playlist on Spotify, YouTube and elsewhere – ind.pn/cryju8.
l.ryan@independent.co.uk
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