Out of Date Record Review - Marcus Mixx & FIT

So this record came out on Detroit's Fit Sound in April but I only got it a month or two ago. It's just so damn good I still fancy writing about it.

The Marcus Mixx track, Salut the Noise with a Laugh, is unsurprisingly a mix of raw house beats & cowbell (classic Mixx) and cheerfully unhinged vibes. Opening with a straightforward enough sounding stab, things quickly unravel as video gamey bleeps and weirdness starts undulating all over the place..and then.. and then.. the laugh starts. Yes, the sampled man's laugh that dips in and out of the track adding a bit of  One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest to an already pretty odd track. The beats are ace, the production flawless (read, raw and direct) and the samples and weirdness absolutely spot on. Happy days.

The FIT track has a way different appeal. Totally, utterly hypnotic and more than a little bit sweat lodge, it shares the raw hewn sounds of the Mixx track and has more than a hint of Oasis Collaborating vibes. A simple looped builder which creeps up and up and up and takes you back back back to the source. SERIOUSLY HOT.  

Listen to clips at the Fit Records distribution site, there's a pretty defunct looking Fit Soundcloud if you're interested, and don't forget Marcus Mixx's INCREDIBLE youtube channel.

New L.I.E.S. - MUTANT BEAT DANCE - SKETCH III

New on the lovely Brooklyn-based L.I.E.S. label is this track from Mutant Beat Dance, aka Beau Wanzer and Melvin Oliphant (who is also known as Traxx). As with all the Mutant Beat Dance stuff I've heard, the beats are just pretty damn tough. Not hard, mind, they just ooze dancefloor rawness. And the rest of the track is nicely unhinged, there's a looped keyboard sound in there that's menacing like a Goblin soundtrack, some incomprehensible vocal samples and lots of raw jacking vibes. It's heavy and it's weird and it'll make you jack, it's mutant beat dance.

 

Torn Hawk - Tarifa

Torn Hawk is a Brooklyn-based producer whose new release is out soon on NY’s fine new(ish) house label L.I.E.S. Torn Hawk is also an alias of video artist Luke Wyatt, he of the PPU Party DVD series (think betamax, jheri curls, synths and spandex - see below). 

Anyway, Tarifa. The track combines cold metallic undertones with seductively dreamy Balearic guitar licks and warm, wistful synths. It’s an unusual combination but it really works, and the same compelling incongruity is found in the video, where VHS static and digital FX surround the romantic hand-holding, sunset-laden imagery. 

Both track and vid are heavy with analogue poignance and beautiful hyper-modern wistfulness; a strong contribution to the new wave of analogue, left-of-centre house-not-house coming from L.I.E.S (and Brooklyn in general) of late. 

Revisionist House

Oh no, they've remastered house's soul! Paul Purgas over at Off Modern has a very good point, minus the melodrama.

http://www.offmodern.com/2011/06/revisionist-house/