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Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists compiled by our favorite artists. This week: Out Hud and Hot Chip.
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Listed: Out Hud + Hot Chip
Out Hud
Out Hud are an amazing band from Brooklyn. Together now for over eight years, the quintet manages to pull together so many disparate elements of music from styles as varied as punk, funk, dub, noise, and electronic that it comes together in their own unique voice. In addition to releasing their years-in-the-making debut (S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D., out on Kranky), and the !!! member overlap, their live set has been generating converts left and right. Their new album, Let Us Never Speak Of It Again (Kranky), finds them expanding their sound (vocals!) and message considerably. Justin Van Der Volgen participated in this week's Listed feature.
Ten Things I'm into (in no particular order):
1. American Idol
I know this is for a record type list, but you have to be into other shit than just records. I have no idea why I like this show but I've been an addict since the Clay/Ruben season. I watch it whenever I'm not holed up the basement working on tunes.
2. Jet Li
Fuck this guy is amazing, I've been watching kung fu movies since I was a kid but there was a period in '99/2000 when I was renting all his movies. The fight sequences are totally beautiful, masterfully put together, and just fucking crazy. Think about if dub mixes could have so much motion. I know Hero wasn't the best but, it was still cool that I could go see it on a big screen.
3. Maps of Africa - "Dirty Lovin" 12" (Whatever we want)
Really good rockin tune. I'm going to be playin' this one a lot this year.
4. Justus Kohnce - "Taste/Elan" 12" (Kompakt)
Kompakt puts out like a record every week, and honestly I'm not always feelin em, alot of hard, shuffle type records just aren't for me, the more techy druggy disco stuff kills though. Plus their records always sound amazing. Anyways back to this one. Great tracks, not songs exactly but I can't wait to put this on the next tape I make to listen to on ecstacy.
5. Roxy Music - Almost everything
If you can find the 12"s BUY THEM! Do I really need to say anything? Good shit man.
6. Norman Whitfield
He's the fuckin’ man. Always fucked up production, interesting arrangements and lots of feeling. Even if you’re not into the songs it's a cool listen.
7. ZZ Top
They were always in guitar/bass player magazine when I was a kid and I always wondered why. Now I know, they’re really good musicians plus I love how they work electronics into rock.
8. Ham and Swiss sandwiches with a poached egg on top
Never had this until recently, it has a French name I can't remember right now. Here's what you do, you make a grilled ham and swiss sandwich (make sure to get the cheese super melted). Then you poach an egg, put it on top and voila! A delicious fucking sandwich, have some mustard on the side and you're psyched. Record nerds and producers need to eat just like everybody else.
9. Eddy Grant - "Electric Avenue" 12" (Ice/Portrait)
Everyone remembers this from when they were a kid. I don't know why, I've just been really psyched on this song lately, probably cause it's fuckin great.
10. Bohannon
A lot like Norman Whitfield in that every record has a good tune and usually the production has bizarre feel to it. Get all the records and pick your own favorites.
Hot Chip
British wit wizards Hot Chip have yet to make their mark on the U.S. just yet, but it's only a matter of time. Their debut record, Coming On Strong (Moshi Moshi) was one of the most unique and amusing records to be released in 2004. Combining soulful vocals, minimal keyboard-based melodies, and gangsta rap ambience Hot Chip manage to extract (and cite) the best parts of Ween and squeeze them into songs that are completely endearing and unpretentious. While members of Hot Chip have toured with Adem in the past, Hot Chip proper are making their North American debut on Monday, March 14 at Rothko in New York, and then with a number of performances at South By Southwest in Austin. You can learn more about Hot Chip at their website (www.hotchip.co.uk), their label's website (www.moshimoshi.co.uk), or their recent Dusted feature (www.dustedmagazine.com/features/343). Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard, Hot Chip's primary singers and songwriters, contributed to this week's Listed feature.
Alexis:
1. The Cosmic Rays (arranged and produced by Sun Ra) - "Daddy's Gonna Tell You No Lie"
This is a doo wop song from the 50s, very lo-fi in its recording quality, and one of my favourite songs of all time. There is such an urgency and simplicity in the vocal performance, and the melody is something the Beach Boys would die for. It just makes me feel amazing when I hear it, and to sing along to it makes you feel full of love for the world of music! Hearing this song about going "down to the record shop without a worry on my mind" and falling in love with someone or something (a record maybe?), and then realizing it is by Sun Ra... It's a strange and beautiful world.
2. The Magnetic Fields - "Josephine" (From their second record ( I think), Distant Plastic Trees)
This is a beautiful love song, played over a very brittle sounding effected electric guitar and synths. Sometimes the sound of a particular instrument - the texture of it - really unsettles you and you become obsessed with it. That happens to me rarely - but the guitar sound, mixed with Susan Anway's voice and the poetry of the words, is something special - only Leadbelly's 'Midnight Special' on 12 string guitar made me feel so sick and happy and sad from just the peculiar sound of an instrument before.
3. Fifty Cent
The steel pans on this record are one of those genius choices that no one would be brave enough or clever enough to think of, anywhere other than in a hip hop production. It just sounds so funky, so amazing to me this record, and I am still amazed by the inventive decisions and ideas in this record and a rare few others that make you dance and think like this one.
4. Sam Cooke - "Change Is Gonna Come"
I rarely listen to this without it making me cry, but I always feel pretty positive at the same time. Despite the fact that it is ostensibly a political song, I find that it is the personal details - singing about going to a movie, singing about his mother and brother - that give more weight and pathos to the more fundamental problems he is singing about, and the need and hope for a change to come.
5. Devo - "Timing X"
This instrumental from the second record blew my mind the first, the second, the third, every single time i have ever heard it.... It's a short electronic disco tune, but not in regular 4/4 time - I'm not suire of the time signature or anything - it feels like it is changing and slipping in and out of time all the way through. I think it is one of the best productions ever - the drums and synths sound so warm and bright, so incredibly funky and urgent. The rhythm is insane. It's a real motherfucker.
Joe:
1. Quasimoto - "Rappcats"
Funky new Madlib production from the forthcoming Quasimoto album- this has an amazing video featuring footage of all the rappers and producers that Madlib namechecks on the record. It makes you remember why you liked hip-hop in the 1st place.
2. The Beach Boys - "Wind Chimes" (The version from Smiley Smile)
You can imagine Brian Wilson sitting there listening to the wind chimes by his window at night and thinking about their sound and then thinking of these really haunting, complex melodies and words. The production of this song is ghostly - the singers sound like they're whispering and its night time and it has all of these different, beautiful movements - like he had so many ideas that he had to make this really schizophrenic song that contained them all.
3. Isolee - Beau Mot Plage
This is an amazing house record- i think its amazing because it uses acoustic sounds and electronic sounds and morphs between them really seamlessly. The drums are simple, funky and brilliant and the melodies are influenced by south American rhythms and work brilliantly. It's inventive and schizophrenic like the Beach Boys record, going from really minimal passages to really colourful, musical parts.
4. Can - Future Days
When you listen to this it sounds like it has been made on a computer in one way, because it sounds like one mind has organized and created it all. The instruments fit together perfectly and seem to be working together in a way that it is really difficult for 4 musicians to achieve. But then in another way it would be impossible to create on a computer because each of the parts is constantly changing and developing very subtly. Basically it blows your mind how focused these guys were, and it has the best grooves.
5. Amerie - "One Thing"
This is one of the best new r'n'b records for ages- it is based on a really jazzy break and has a lot of funkiness and soul to it - and Amerie's voice sounds great. It's so good when producers get these kind of records right and so bad when they get them wrong. This one is already a classic I think, you just know that you'll be able to put it on next year and it will still sound really fun and full of energy.
By Dusted Magazine
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