#42: Friendly Fires

These guys have been in my playlist for far too long without recognition. So I'm starting with the song that first addicted me to them.

I'll continue with quite possibly my favourite:

and the best ever remix:

Followed by the most melancholy:

The most get-the-fuck-up-and-dance:

The most awesome:

And the coverest:

...You get it. These guys are awesome. But it ain't usually my thing, so what the hell happened to make me addicted to them? So, I'll start with Kiss Of Life. Apart from the fact that it's been used by The Aston Shuffle (love!) in one of their MoS discs, it's one of those things where there's a lot of people singing (or it sounds like it, at any rate) and a lot of people singing sounds awesome. Something I call sound saturation. Two things make sound saturation: lots of music, or lots of voices. In this case, it works both ways, except the voice aspect is more prominent. It's like hearing a choir that makes you tear up, except this don't make me tear up. It makes me... um, want to get up and dance and, um... it evokes... emotions of... um... alright fuckit, when I'm in the right mood I tear up at this too. But it ain't a bad tearing up, nor a sad one. It's the best damn tearing up I ever did, and it's all happy emotions.

I just tried to pause it right now so I could move on to the next song. The silence sounded crap.

So what's so big about Paris? Apart from the Eiffel Tower, I mean. I can start with the fact that they love Au Revoir Simone (love!) enough to include them as backing vocals in the original, then they sang the lead vocals in the Aeroplane (love!) remix. It's pretty obvious that there's a huge difference and my gods, it's amazing. Well, they're both amazing in their own way. The Aeroplane (love!) remix is seven minutes long, and at ~4'16" it drops into moar sound saturation! The only gripe I have is that it's ultra slow, but hey, it means there's more time to listen to the liquidness that is the music. Otherwise, I melt whenever I hear Au Revoir Simone (love!), no matter what the song is. They have such beautiful voices. And beautiful... aw hell, they're all beautiful all over. But anyway. I wouldn't mind finding that French girl, but hell if I wouldn't mind five minutes with one of the girls from Au Revoir Simone (love!). But pressing on, and ignoring my hormones.

I love Hurting. Somewhat literally too. The best feeling in the world is making myself feel lonely (without actually being alone). It's the same kind of catharsis as punching a pillow just to get rid of excess rage and testosterone. Hurting isn't one of those songs, so I will say no more on the topic. Hurting is an amazing synthpoppy tune that gripped me as soon as I heard it. Melancholy lyrics <3. Matter of fact, take a Gem Line award for "Gotta let this go, gotta feel some warmth on my own." This is what you must do after a heartbreak. Stay single. Heal thyself. Possibly have a bit of fun in the meantime. Not a bad thing to be able to do that. And also the video is kinda cool.

There's no Friendly Fires song that inspires more energy in me than Hawaiian Air. Year or so old - in fact, I remember waltzing up to my friends' place in my suburb last year (they don't live there this year) with this playing on the radlio. It runs along similar lines to Zimbabwe by New Navy (love!) - take a fuckin' holiday. I wouldn't mind a bit of Hawaii. It's also just so dancy. Fast dancy, but I ain't complaining about that. Also wouldn't mind hearing this song on repeat for a little while. In fact, I'mma go do that after this review is done. And then I might grab a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice in one of those tall glasses and ice and an umbrella... and you know the rest. BEACH. SUNSET. ORANGE JUICE. Who doesn't love that stuff?

So what of Blue Cassette (Tiga Remix)? Well, I gotta confess, I never heard the original. But in all honesty, I don't need to. There isn't much about this song that isn't awesome, though probably a bit bass-heavy at the start of the song, then it melts into a beautiful summer song. And it mentions cassettes! I mean, hell, who uses cassettes any more? Okay, so vinyl is making a re-surface, but cassettes aren't. Vinyl was the bomb, so faithful. Cassettes weren't. The tapes twisted and stretched (though some funky sounds were made when that happened). Don't get me wrong, I loved cassettes (video and audio), but I was relieved when they took a step back for CDs and mp3s. Much love for Blue Cassette (Tiga Remix). Not overly fond when it gets bassy again near the end, but I can cut that out if I ever want to use it.

Wow. One to go. And what better way to end than by covering a cover? IMO this sounds better than the Lykke Li (love!) version, but that's probably a matter of taste more than anything. Hell, it's piano and it's a dude whose falsetto is actually not too bad. Don't ask me what the cover was in aid of, mind; it completely escapes me. It also escapes my best Internet tracking efforts (at 2am). I am happy that the song is this fun and pianoey, but it's over way too fast. Sad now. Which means the review is also over. Very sad now. But hey, there's heaps more Friendly Fires stuff. In fact, I'll just leave this here and begone.

My only gripe with Friendly Fires is that Ed Macfarlane can't dance well in the videos. But he looks like he's having fun so I'm not complaining any more.

#32: Look Inside - 4Hero ft. FACE

Alright guys, I said I'd feature it last post. Here it is: 4Hero's deep house track Look Inside, in three flavours: original, Izmabad, and Nu:Tone.

Honest opinion: in comparison to the others, the Plain version is what it says on the box. A bit bland. But this wasn't the first version I heard. This was:

The Izmabad remix. And a hell of a win it was too. As I said last post, I blame Nando's Bundoora. I heard it, noted the lyrics "searching every pot of gold, running out of rainbows". And here is the result of an extensive Internet search afterwards:

So what is it about this liquid music that attracts me, again and again, like a motherfucking magnet? Apart from the fact that it's liquid music? I'd say the memories associated with the songs. Each and every one makes me think of summer (tick), Melbourne (tick), spicy chicken (tick) and being happy (HUGE TICK). Simply because I was happy in a Melbourne summer, eating spicy chicken when I first heard this. And kept hearing it all throughout summer '10-'11. Winning harder than Charlie Sheen (which isn't hard. But still).

I love Melbourne. I have an entire playlist, 150 songs long, devoted to it. I have also mixed two 1h20' sets based on thirty-nine songs from that playlist. I also love summer. Same deal, except no mixes and a playlist that is 100 songs long. The fact that both are miniscule compared to the size of my library (nearly 9,000 songs) is offset by the sheer amount of times I have played those songs. And hell, those playlists are totally incomplete. One thing's for sure: this song is in them all.

Finally, I mentioned the lyrics before: "searching every pot of gold, running out of rainbows". This gets a Gem Line award. Just like that. And I'm retroactively awarding one to Feather by Little Dragon, for the line "You are airborne, you've got silver rays". Enjoy.

#10: Swoon - The Chemical Brothers

A word about remixes. A lot of people don't like them because they wreck all that is good and holy about the original (if the original was good, or holy for that matter). Still more say that the remixers have absolutely no creativity and pretty much steal the idea from the original. Nothing could be further from the truth. A remix is the vision of two different artists meshed together to create something different altogether. Maybe the artists have similar tastes, maybe they don't. Either way, it's refreshing to see something a little bit different to the same sort of crap that some artists chuck out. And speaking of crap, here is our case in point (which is anything BUT crap):

The original version of Swoon by the Chemical Brothers. Quick review: it's a pretty epic song. There. Easy. The only thing easier would be reviewing Angger Dimas' stuff: with a few exceptions, most of his songs can be described with four-letter words. But anyway. Below is the Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas remix:

Here is the Boys Noize "Summer" remix:

And finally, this is the Don Diablo remix:

Hopefully you can see the obvious and not-so-obvious differences between the four tracks. My humble (I swear!) opinion is that the Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas remix is a little more average than the original, while the Boys Noize remix is stellar. The Don Diablo remix is a little more akin to the original than the others - in fact, it sounds very much like a broken version of the original. Each one has its pros and cons and each and every single one is a good song. As I said before, they're hybrids of the creative geniuses of the Chemical Brothers and the songs' respective remixers. Note that I'm admittedly biased towards Boys Noize (because Boys Noize kick arse).

I'll start with the Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas remix. Compared to the others (and the original), it has more of a Flight Facilities-esque chilled electro house beat to it. One could be forgiven initially for thinking that the original was an acoustic track and that Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas just chucked an electro beat behind it, stirred it up, and let it loose. Clearly that's not the case. It's much like chilled - almost deep - house of yesteryear than the electric guitar hit that the original is. Mind, that's like comparing apples (the original) to orange juice with ice and a fancy glass and those cute little umbrellas you get in cocktails, served freshly squeezed on a beach in Hawaii during a cloudless 28°C (~82°F) sunset (the remix). I love orange juice. Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas have taken the song down a couple of notches, but since "down" is "downtempo" rather than "negative" I'd say they did a pretty good job, but overall I rate the song NSFP (not suitable for parties).

And now I get to rip the Boys Noize remix to shreds. The problem is... I can't actually sink my claws into it. The song is an amazing standalone song, and if I didn't know it was a remix I wouldn't believe it if you told me, even if you were strapped to a lie detector. The only real complaint I've heard comes from a friend, who reckons the buildup at the start is a little more, erm, unimpressive. That said, it redeems itself (he continued) by building it up to something a little more epic. Boys Noize didn't wreck the song (he continued further) - they built their own magic on to an already amazing song. To that statement (my turn, finally), I completely agree. Having heard the remix before the original, however, as I said I'm somewhat biased towards the Boys Noize remix. Having said that, it's very hard for me to imagine anything better than the end of this song to end an album. Bliss.

Finally, the Don Diablo remix. I confess I know very little about Don Diablo and I knew even less about the remix before I wrote this post (I've actually written this over a span of six days, thanks largely to lack of sleep and fucking uni schedules) but I found it when I was searching YouTube for the other three videos. Originally it sounds like a damaged version of the original, but oh my various gods¹ does it redeem itself beautifully. It seems to have been created as less of a party song and more of an energiser (a pre-song to go with the pre-drinks, if you will) but, again, I'd personally use it as a night-ender rather than a night-starter. Either way, I can't pick a style of house for this song. It seems to be a mishmash of three or four different styles - it starts out as almost grungy house (think LMFAO) but it develops into... what? Something. Something that pleases my aural canal. (If that's even a technical phrase.) I would play this over and over if I was a DJ. But I'm not, so I'll settle for casual listening, because unfortunately I can't see this remix becoming a sound of Melbourne any time soon.

Sing with me! Just remember to fall in love, there's nothing else...