Jetpilot Music Reviews

For giving far too much credit to acts like the atrocious Arctic Monkeys and diabolical Sandi Thom. For dragging us along one profile to the next only to find ourselves somewhere quite unrecognisable from where we started. For the terrible layout and enabling so many myspacers to throw together profiles so garish that soldiers are actually turning in their graves from the fruit born of their brave sacrifice.

On the upside, myspace means I can more easily keep an eye on a lot of the acts that really float my boat and come to find out more about the acts I’d like to get to know better. Myspace also sees the occasional treasure pop up and one that has smiling from ear to ear is Cheb AstiAn’s Marakech Edit of Kavinsky’s seminal Testarossa Autodrive.

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Kavinsky – Testarossa Autodrive (Cheb AstiAn’s Marakech Edit) ripped from his myspace.

It brings up memories of Damascus and Aleppo and Istanbul, of plump belly-dancing women, of shisha pipes and weird little men in suits, of large hairy men in music videos seen warbling along the rippling edge of some anonymous waterway, of music blaring on tinny stereos and so distorted from being the fourth copy of a copy of a tape someone had 18 years ago.

Suffice to say I love it.

As a basis for comparison, here is SebastiAn’s remix of Kavinsky’s Testarossa Autodrive…

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Kavinsky – Testarossa Autodrive (SebastiAn Remix) from his EP 1986 [ buy ]

… and Kavinsky’s unadulerated original in all its glory.

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Kavinsky – Testarossa Autodrive from his EP Teddy Boy [ buy ]

Now I know the Cheb AstiAn sounds almost unrecognisable to the SebastiAn and the original but give it a couple listens and you’ll feel it nestled behind the thick plumes of shisha smoke that suddenly fill the room.

Kavinsky @ myspace

SebastiAn @ myspace

I’m not in a romantic frame of mind right now, so I wasn’t in any position to put together a lovey dovey mix. Instead here’s a dirty lusty mix, full of explicit lyrics and vocals, and bouncing beats. Don’t listen if you are easily offended by such things.

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Jetpilot – A Dirty Valentine’s [ 51:58 - 52.1 MB ]

Tracklisting behind the cut…

Read the rest of this entry »

Apologies for the extended hiatus but it seems neither of your hosts have felt particularly willing or able to post about the music that moves and excites us. For my own sins I’m afraid I’ve been suffering under the tyranny of choice what with all the new and not-altogether-official releases that have sprouted from the blogosphere undergrowth and onto my ipod. How do you choose between hot tracks that suit the summer we’re currently living through here in the Antipodean South Pacific? How do you move beyond Daft Punk after gazing upon the electronic pyramid and its many-splendoured light show?

And so here we are. Yes. Hmm.

Ok!

The Kids from Trashbags scored quite the coup by bringing French DJ (and future father of my children) Danger over for a few live sets in Sydney this week. Although Sydney seems so close, it turns out my less than prudent fiscal ways meant Sydney was so very very far away. Ladies and gentlemen, dear readers, I am afraid I wasn’t able to sort my shit out in time to make it across to see the masked man drop his tunes, blow my mind and break my body.

Thankfully the internet has come to the rescue with those brave boys and girls (I assume their group is heterogendered, and no I don’t know if that is a real word) at Trashbags popping out from their virtual womb a recording of his live set at last weekend’s Trashbags. This set is 58 minutes of deliciousness and you really don’t know how difficult it is for me to sit here and type with it blasting in the background.

Head here to grab his live set, and while it is downloading you really should head here to read all about the night he made Sydney his own.

To tide you over in the time it takes you to download the live set, and for those who have yet to fall in irrational aural lust with Danger, here is the better known of his time-coded tracks 11H30…

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Danger – 11H30 from his EP 09/14 2007 [ buy ]

… but I would argue that 14H54 is the best of the songs he has released thus far.

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Danger – 14H54 from his EP 09/14 2007 [ buy ]

Hat-tip and hella thanks to the Kids from Trashbags for bringing the man over and sharing the Danger love with those of us who couldn’t quite make it to see him live.

UPDATE : It seems Danger is making a one night only appearance in my favourite Australian city, Melbourne, so head on over to Fashion Keyboard this Friday night. The flyer looks fairly budge(t) but hey, it’s Danger!

Danger @ myspace

Following on from the awkward fawning over Ladyhawke earlier, I’ve since managed to dig up from the vault a couple more Ladyhawke songs that I thought you might enjoy.

First up is Paris Is Burning. This is arguably the song most of us have come to know and love while it sat for so long on her myspace, almost as a herald of good times ahead.

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Ladyhawke – Paris Is Burning

It just screams carefree summers spent in continental climes, of happy 60s films and summer dresses. Every bit the summer anthem. I love it.

Next up is Manipulating Woman. This is a more recent addition to her myspace page and what an addition it is too.

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Ladyhawke – Manipulating Woman

I could wax lyrically about how this sounds more modern and more immediate than Paris Is Burning, but that doesn’t matter quite as much as simply knowing that this is really quite good. Simple as that.

I remarked in another post that we’re starting to see the blogosphere mark their picks of “artists to watch in ’08″. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Ladyhawke is on my list of artists I’ll be watching this year.

Watching to see if she performs live the next time she’s in Wellington.

Watching to see if she busts out any new material.

Watching to see if she rekindles her collaboration with Pnau‘s Nick Littlemore in Teenager.

Expect greatness people. I know I do. On the basis of her work so far, how can you not?

Ladyhawke @ myspace

Pnau @ myspace

Teenager @ myspace

It seems being on the other side of the world has its advantages after all. Upon hearing Culture Prophet would be handing out CDs at their NYE set in Spartanburg (I have no idea where this is other than somewhere in the US of A), an immediate if plaintive cry for help from down here in the deep dark bowels of the South Pacific saw a little treasure arrive in my inbox almost anon-like.

Ladies and gentlemen, Culture Prophet have just dropped their latest homegrown effort and it is rather good. The song is Here Comes Nasty.

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Culture Prophet – Here Comes Nasty.

You can taste hints of their earlier song Hustler, the familiar hand clap-thump refrain in their remixes of other people’s work, and the lashings of distortion we’ve come to know and love. I really quite like this. I really do.

I’ve been sitting on this for a few days now, not really sure what to do with it. Its a good song and I’m really enjoying it, so it wasn’t through damaged pride or disappointment. I guess I just didn’t want it to get lost in the thunderous torrent of fairly-banal end-of-year lists that have stricken the blogsophere in recent weeks.

With attention seeming to have since shifted to “artists to watch in ’08″-type posts and with so many of their remixes getting more and more attention on the blogosphere, I’d say the time is right for more of their own work to be given a chance to shine.

Culture Prophet @ myspace

Down here in the ass-end of the world we are experiencing what some might describe as an ‘Antipodean summer’. This means that while most of the globe’s bounteous population would be going through the tail-end of their White Christmas, we have sunshine and mosquitoes.

Glorious.

On the subject of glorious, I’ve found myself awash in a song that has really been helping me get into the holiday mood. I can’t remember when it went up on myspace (maybe a month ago?) but it is swiftly becoming one of my most-played songs of this summer.

Ladies and gentlemen, the song is Back Of The Van by the very-international Ladyhawke.

It is an achingly 80s tune that brings to mind a dizzying array of singer-songwriter references, and that’s a good thing. After all, summer is all about stumbling into new experiences through a haze of the familiar, along the well-trodden path, all the while adding to the collective understanding of what summer is all about.

Cerebral, I know, but work with me people.

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Ladyhawke – Back Of The Van.

My first experience of Pip Brown aka Ladyhawke was through her collaboration with Pnau’s Nick Littlemore on a little something called Teenager. I remember listening to the radio while holidaying in Melbourne when Teenager’s song Alone Again emerged. I’d bought their album less than an hour later (amen for Polyester Records). I’ve waxed lyrically before now how good they are but here’s a reminder for you (of how good they are) and for me (of where my summer experience began).

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Teenager – Alone Again from album Thirteen [ buy ]

Ladyhawke’s myspace says she splits her time between Sydney, London and of all places Wellington. I’m insanely curious to know why she counts Wellington among her ‘places I go’ (more the ‘why’ than anything else), but to be honest I’m more interested in knowing if and wishfully when she might next perform here in our nation’s capital.

Fingers crossed it won’t be too long. I’m an only child. I wasn’t built to wait.

Ladyhawke @ myspace

Teenager @ myspace

Well these remixes have already been dropped on various blogs, but Blamma! Blamma! were kind enough to send us links to all three, and what can a poor boy do except pass the generosity on? Plus it’s a chance for those of you who missed them individually to pick them up all at once. It’s like it’s Christmas.

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The Teenagers – Starlett Johannson (Blamma! Blamma! Remix) *Jetpilot recommended*

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Scanners – Raw (Blamma! Blamma! Scanner! Remix)

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Rival Joustas – Clarity (Blamma! Blamma! clear as mud mix)

Australian 80s revivalists Van She have just come out with their latest single, Cat & The Eye and it sounds really rather good. It also sounds incredibly familiar but I’m really not sure how to place it.

Either way here’s the weirdly nonsensical music video for Cat & The Eye. Enjoy…

If you aren’t familiar with Van She they’ve come out with a few brilliant songs on their self-titled EP, with Kelly and Sex City seeming to be the more recognisable tracks from the remixes floating around the blogosphere. Cut Copy and Alan Braxe have lent their talents to Kelly, while Sex City got the Nightmoves and South Central treatment. All in all excellent remixes of some excellent songs, and to to prove it, here are the unadulterated original versions of both songs.

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Van She – Kelly

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Van She – Sex City

Sex City is my favourite of the two. I’m not sure why, it just is. If you want to know how to get your hands on these and other Van She goodies, get their self-titled EP here.

I really enjoy Van She for the songs they come out with and because their sound is quite different to a lot of the club-centric stuff emanating from Australia. Don’t get me wrong, I love that stuff, but it’s nice to have a little variety.

After all, variety is the spice of life.

Hat-tip to Travis over at Bigstereo for the headline and hooking us up with the Van She music video.

Van She @ myspace

A year or so back, Kavinsky’s Testarossa Autodrive completely blew me away. Well, it blew me across the Tasman Sea to see him with SebastiAn, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The thing that bugged me at the time was that Kavinsky seemed pretty much a lone voice almost drowned out by the gritty electro that was flooding the blogosphere and the dancefloors.

Well it seems filtered synths are back with a vengeance with Kavinsky’s Gallic countryman Danger stirring things up on the blogosphere. He’s recently signed with Ekleroschock Records (home to DatA and Chewy Chocolate Cookies among others), so things really seem set for the guy.

misstoats over at Bigstereo said that “If Danger had his own car racing Kavinsky’s in the ‘Testarossa Autodrive’ video, this is what he would be listening to”, and I couldn’t agree more.

Danger has a very similar sound to Kavinsky in that dated synth sound we all know and love. Danger is also running with his own cartoon alter ego, a routine Kavinsky’s been rocking quite well since his Teddy Boy EP in 2005, so its no surprise strong comparisons have been made between the two.

All his tracks seem to be time-coded (9h20, 11h30, 14h54, etc.) which seems odd but doesn’t detract from the tracks themselves.

9H20 is the one that seems to be garnering the most attention, and it certainly deserves it.

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Danger – 9H20

11H30 is just as good if a slightly different feel.

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Danger – 11H30

The EP will have hidden gems like 14H54 (which is an absolute stonker of a track – if impatient, listen to the stream on his myspace) so you really ought to mark down on your calendar the 19th of November (ok, maybe I am dyslexic when it comes to dates because the EP came out today, although there’s no sign of it on the NZ itunes store – ugh!) for your copy of Danger’s EP.

Kavinsky @ myspace

Danger @ myspace

Ekleroshock Records@ myspace

Ok, so I’ve been trawling through the songs on my itunes that I’ve listened to more than 9 times but less than 49 times, and it’s an interesting smartlist that brings up a lot of the new tracks that are floating my boat as well as many of the less recent ones I loved and left for whatever reason, and the variety has been really rather enjoyable.

Well, blow me down if this song didn’t pop up one afternoon and capture me from the sharp drums and throbbing bass line.

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Azzido Da Bass – Lonely By Your Side from Kitsuné Maison Compilation 2 [ buy ]

I’d always written off this German DJ as one of the pointless Ibiza-touring wankers that specialise in the mediocrity of the Ministry of Sound sound (which he may actually be, I wouldn’t really know), but I must admit that Lonely By Your Side is seriously floating my boat right now.

Kudos to the folk at Kitsuné Music for their generally excellent taste and the recommendation.

Azzido Da Bass @ myspace

Kitsuné Music @ myspace