RAC :: "Let Go" [Feat. Kele and MNDR]

Two tableaus: Open to a field after a friend's wedding, various disheveled white people dance furiously to the RAC remix of Foster The People's "Houdini". It is likely to be late, and most of these people do not necessarily like Foster The People. Someone yells, "If you can't dance to this, you can't dance to anything"; the field goes wild. Scene two: The RAC play Brooklyn Bowl. In an unknown series of escalating dares, one friend slaps another in the face. What is the meaning of this? No one knows; it's the power of the RAC. And finally, what began as the Remix Artist Collective, an act that used to spin at terrible LES bars like the Skinny, looses itself on the world with a full length record. First single, "Let Go" is a comparative slow jam featuring Kele of Bloc Party and MNDR of, well, MNDR. It would easily be the best Bloc Party song in six years if Kele weren't merely a guest here. The hook spins and weaves, one of the best of the year. It isn't necessarily a burner - the RAC has surely saved some heat here - but it contains that ineffable and immutable quality of all great pop music, the kind of thing that turns a field into a dance party, the kind of thing that slaps in the face.

Top 50 Songs of 2012 :: [30-21]

Welcome to our annual countdown of the 50 best songs of the calendar year. Songs must be from an EP, LP or demo released during 2012 and no band may appear twice. Today, we count down 30 to 21.

30. Reptar - "Orifice Origami"



No one had more fun in 2012 than Reptar did during the opening thirty seconds of single, "Orifice Origami". The shuddering synthesizer arrangement coalesced for a brief moment on the shouting lyric, "Something's not all right here," a sort of something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-Denmark for a generation of kids almost as gutted and even less decisive than Hamlet. Irony was the twist, a party song about everything being all fucked up, dancing on the edge of a disaster, or what your summer should have sounded like if you were under the age of 30 and stuck with these circumstances.


29. NO - "Another Life"



 "Another Life," represented the resounding announcement from post-National rock outfit NO. It channeled Berninger to be sure, only missing a lyric about apple pies or lemonade or something in the lemonade. It was Americana all the same, dark slices of counterfactual, lines like "we'll get pretty after," all targeting a group of future selves that would self-actualize. It wasn't "Mr. November" but on the shaking conclusion, it was NO's "Mr. November".


28. Paradise - "Endless Wave"



Paradise is shaping up to have a massive 2013 around first demo "Endless Wave," a carefree surf-pop arrangement that owes just as much to the Beach Boys as it does to LCD Soundsystem. Opening to a stomping middle section, the band concerned itself with languid days of summer and a sort of zero-friction reality where the confetti cannons explode and we're all carried away on their "Endless Wave".


27.The Rest - "Laughing Yearning"



The most criminally underrated rock band of 2012, The Rest released a crushingly great record and no one from mainstream independent music circles, at least in the US, seemed to go as bananas as they, perhaps, should have. "Laughing Yearning," without spoiling all the fun, is the song that Local Natives will struggle to find on their second long-player, a wide open and Western rock song about hysterical lost love. These were celebratory drums, and a soaring melody, all colliding in one of the best chord resolutions of the year, the lead singer moaning into the maw, tumbling downwards and finding himself in the final group of choruses.

26. Bloc Party - "Truth"



No one made guitars sound so at once warm and abrasive as Bloc Party did on "Truth". Easily the best song off what was a forgettable fourth record - and it was called Four which should have been the first non-silent sign of alarm - "Truth" churned forward toward a crystalline chorus. The band's traditional sawing guitars were here harnessed for the purposes of elevation, signaling a danger and a submission, Kele promising, "I am yours now, respectfully." 

25. The Mean Season - "Hearts"



It was gritty stuff on The Mean Season's "Hearts," opening lyrics about past pursuits and cold hearts. The innovation, beyond the shabby indie rock arrangement, was the critical commentary about the heart ever became a symbol for love. Perhaps it is just a mean little fist that keeps you from dying. Maybe love is elsewhere, rather than the four-chambered flesh beneath your rib cage. Even a bit meta, the band demanded, "Who decided it was such perfect symbol for love/when it's only an organ pumping your blood?" in one of the best, worst and most memorable lyrics of the year.


24. Theme Park - "Jamaica"



Like St. Lucia, Theme Park was actively engaged in making equatorial music in 2012. "Jamaica" joined the already great single, "Two Weeks," to firm up the sense that Theme Park could be staging a take over in the next few months. "Jamaica" was carefree, an instantly memorable hook and a chorus that drifted along under its own power.


23. Thieving Irons - "Poison"

If "Poison" didn't make sense to you, you either had an intensely bucolic adolescence or missed it all together. The narrative thrust, the repeating hook, "I've got poison in my head," exploded into a middle section that was the closest rock music has come to the churn and crush of the finishing kick of LCD's "All My Friends." After all, "Poison" had a second motif. "You were always on my mind," they sang, a reference that this poison might have a proper noun attached to it. She, like the song that followed, was an absolute killer.

22. Harriet - "I Slept With All Your Mothers"



There wasn't much to "I Slept With All Your Mothers." It was less than two-and-a-half minutes long, a lonely little piano and some plodding guitars. It was the vocal, a screaming and insistent melody, not to mention the most pathological conclusion of any rock song of the year, that sent "I Slept With All Your Mothers" near the top of 2012. It was all love and rage, a "fuck off" to the girl who broke your heart, and a middle of the town square scream, "I Slept With All Your Mothers!" before wading off into the friscalating darkness alone.


21. Suburban Living - "I Don't Fit In"



It was the Cure song that the Cure never released. "I Don't Fit In" was independent rock's "Friday I'm In Love" for 2012, only without the saccharine coating and the radio play. All reverb and washing guitars, Suburban Living chased the melody around for awhile before shouting the title lyric against a backdrop of glittering guitars. It was the final downbeat, a relentless and dogged driver, that propelled the arrangement along. This was the music the Drums could never dream of making, a sadness of an unarticulated type that no one has time for anymore.

Departures :: "Pillars"

One of the best post-punk debuts of 2012 comes from Departures, a Canadian five-piece drawing on the tradition of Echo and the Bunnymen and early Bloc Party. "Pillars", a bass-heavy, shout-along affair, is eerily reminiscent of Kele Okereke's didactic vocals and roughed-up arrangement for "The Answer," though minus the final crashing conclusion and such a biting aphorism as, "you could talk a little less." The guitar leads on "Pillars" rip and charge as sharp angles behind dark lyrics like, "I don't want for you to see" and a surprisingly catchy chorus. It's all been intentionally buried in layers and layers of fuzz, but the melodies emerge from the haze, a haunting series of zombie hooks left to run roughshod over your zip code.

Coastal Cities :: "Think Tank"

Sometimes you need useless comparisons. It's a start, after all, naming those things; you, a pattern recognizing machine built for solid navigation. Beyond the savageries of its alliteration, Coastal Cities' stunning new single, "Think Tank", a precocious and explosive offering, will feel both very new and achingly familiar. The easiest footnotes are early Bloc Party, but somehow more juvenile and charming, and a less electric Two Door Cinema Club (circa the time when they had no drummer and used an iPod). "Think Tank" finds its energy in repetition ("I like you but I really don't love you") and a final movement that kicks at the 2:03-mark and recalls the most soaring moments of the grand tradition of poppy, post-punk. There are elements of The Drums, but somehow a less annoying version, mixed with the youthful embolisms of teenagers who don't care a lick about the proper nouns in this paragraph, the comparisons wholly irrelevant if unmistakeable. This is the cost of comparison, the robbery of emotional aesthetics at the hands of critical analysis. So when someone leans close and says, "Don't these guitars remind you of the mathematical arpeggios of Foals?", you can clearly and confidently say no.

Coastal Cities - Thinktank by CoastalCities

Bloc Party :: "One More Chance" [Video] + Alex Metric Remix

The video for Bloc Party's "One More Chance" is one of the more winning things you'll run across today. The narrative is based out of a variety of vignettes, all concerning ideas of hurt, passion and grace in the face of failure. Opening with the picture of awkwardness on the piano and Matt Tong responds with disgust mixing into bemusement and then (is it possible?) respect. Kele is paired with an overly made-up woman, preparing for lust and waiting for heartbreak. It's powerful stuff.



Listen :: Bloc Party - One More Chance" (Alex Metric Remix)

Bloc Party :: "One More Chance"

Bloc Party are back with another single, out mid-summer. And, again, it's bound to make people upset.

If you thought "Mercury" was a jag off the reservation, you probably won't like "One More Chance." In fact, the first ten seconds of the track are unrecognizable as Bloc Party - it sounds more like prelude to "Rhythm Is A Dancer." But, Kele's vocals explode into the mix and from there on the song mirrors the narrative of "Flux." Which is to say: if you weren't expecting prototypical Bloc Party, you might like it - but if you were expecting Silent Alarm, this will be another chance to say, "what happened to this band?" or "what the hell is this?" So more specifically, "One More Chance" is more a creature of your expectations than it is a stand-alone piece of art.

This band, in visual metaphor, is like a wild animal. Silent Alarm dropped and we discovered them in the wild - relatively untouched and unaffected. We had a little window into the band's sound, largely unfiltered and seemingly pure. And then we brought them to the city. Like putting King Kong in New York, it wasn't a wonder that the band changed. It wasn't any wonder that they wrote A Weekend In The City. It was urban and anthemic and a little pleading ("tonight make me unstoppable"). It was what they thought we wanted. And instead people ripped them for either being too safe or not safe enough. In an unbelievable turn of events, Bloc Party was accused of not being "Bloc Party" enough.

So they disappeared for a year, emerging only to release "Flux" as an early "eff you, we'll be what we want to be," returning a year after that with the left-hook of Intimacy. We tried to domesticate the animal, tried to teach them our tricks, to colonize their sound with our desires. And they learned just enough to flee the city. They ripped their tracking devices off and headed for the woods. They fled the radar screens, fried the matrix, and didn't just color outside the lines, they burned the coloring book. They started talking about the apocalypse, about crushing break-ups, about redemption ("Ion Square") but redemption on their own terms. They went back to nature.

"One More Chance" is a club-burner and it wasn't what you expected. Give up. This band isn't going to try to be what you wanted ever again. They're off the reservation. And it's great.

Listen :: Bloc Party - "One More Chance"

On The List :: Bloc Party @ Terminal 5 [3.24.08]

The moment of the night comes late and it is brief. We're about three beats from the beginning of the second chorus to "The Prayer" when a young man rises from the crowd on the hands of his peers. In about the third row, he's raised straight up from his waist, almost crucifixion style, with his arms out and a look of complete, unrestrained awe. And in a heartbeat and a half, he drops. The lights explode in time and Kele screams: Tonight, make me unstoppable.

The image of youth defying gravity and a band having the power to elevate is fleeting. It's not that Bloc Party isn't trying. Kele's stage banter resembles the encouragement of an elementary school teacher; two parts encouraging, one part reinforcement, and one part constructive criticism. He expects more out of us, but, well, aren't we doing pretty decently all the same and, isn't there a little more we could give? Yes. Yes, there is more we can give.

Shift gears a minute, lower your eyes from the stage and stare at the backs of the two guys in front of me. They've paid their $31.50 like most of the rest of the crowd. They're reasonably dressed and know some of the words to some of the songs. They are what most people would call "fans." Unfortunately, they are locked in the battle of who can move less. It's like watching two statues start a staring contest. Simply, everyone loses. They don't clap during the first encore and they give nothing of themselves. I yell, as unironically as possible, "feel. feelings. Care about anything. Please." We are slow-clapping. They don't turn around. It would require moving.

"Ion Square" (Live @ 3.24.09)


And the crowd's effort isn't to be blamed on the set list. Bloc Party plays a majority of the new record, the favorites off the first record, and a few choice cuts off the middle one. It's anything but safe, moving from one high-wire routine to another. And in a few spots, it doesn't work. "Ion Square" doesn't sound nearly as epic live but, frankly, if it were any more epic our hearts might pop. A little comedown isn't so bad because when "Song For Clay" becomes "Banquet" there isn't time to breathe. After the first encore, the band unleashes "Flux" like a hot mess into the crowd. The lights blink and go green. Everyone moves. This is a song that no one got in September '07. It's March '09 and there isn't a person in the audience with questions.

The band closes with "This Modern Love" and a message: "This is for all the people who supported us on that first record four years ago." Has it been that long? Yes, it has. About half the crowd claps. Silent Alarm seems like forever ago but "This Modern Love" still seems fresh. It makes people dance. It makes me reflective. We are terribly, terribly alone. And yet, here we are, all together. It's moving. Which is exactly what everyone should have been doing from the outset.

Listen :: Bloc Party - "Signs" (AVH Remix)

Bloc Party :: "This Modern Love" [Live on La Blogotheque]

Bloc Party, 'This Modern Love' - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

On The List :: Bloc Party @ Roseland Ballroom [9.18.08]

32feet can't be everywhere at once. This guest concert review is brought to you by Chuck from Dead Bands, one of the best blogs in the world.

A free concert almost always turns out to be a bittersweet affair. Such was the case for Bloc Party's free, semi-secret show at Roseland Ballroom on Thursday night. Although the initial response to the ticket price is certainly appealing, you never really think about the dire circumstances that you will undoubtedly face upon arriving at the venue. Doors for this particular show were scheduled for 7:15 pm. By the time I got there, the line had wrapped around the entire block (insert pun here), so that the first and last person in line were standing right next to each other. The website for the event claimed that no one would be let in without an online RSVP. However, I found the coordinators were haphazardly doling out bracelets to anyone walking by. Despite how many people actually showed up for this thing, once they were filed into the venue, it was actually downright comfortable.

The opening act for the evening was Amazing Baby, who also played the last Bloc Party show in New York, about 4 weeks ago at Webster Hall. It is unclear why this Brooklyn septet was chosen to open both shows, considering the fact that absolutely zero Bloc Party fans could get into them. Every song sounded like a junior high cover band attempting to play “Gimme Shelter.” Not even their two homely backup singers could grasp the attention of the audience. The “band” mercifully ended their set after roughly 40 minutes. Just as everyone started to get the feeling they had been cheated, the lights went down and Bloc Party appeared. Drummer Matt Tong walked onstage draped in what appeared to be a velvet blanket, only to reveal himself wearing nothing but boxers and a wife beater. Singer/guitarist Kele Okereke, once again donning his Jamaican-flag-colored Barack Obama shirt, immediately addressed the fact that this show was free, and that everyone should be cheering louder.

Another downside to the free show experience is that this gives the band the right to try out all of their new stuff on the audience. Although you really want to hear all of your old favorites, you will most likely have to sit through at least 5-6 songs that this band is not used to playing live. This accounted for a rather tired rendition of “Signs” and “Ares,” which found Kele rushing to sing both of his studio-overdubbed vocal parts at once. Unfortunately, they decided to leave “Ion Square” out of their set, which is far and away the strongest song on their new album, Intimacy. Although there were some decent moments in a few of the new songs, it was clear what the audience really wanted to hear. When the opening chords to “Banquet” and “Helicopter” broke in, it was an absolute frenzy. In contrast, songs from A Weekend in the City got a lukewarm reaction. By booking a free show, Bloc Party guaranteed themselves a Silent Alarm type of crowd. This made for a show that was only about 40% satisfying for most attendees. Thus is the dilemma of the free show. Bloc Party comes away with a little bit more experience, but also an unsure outlook for their future. The audience comes away with just enough satisfaction to make it worth their time.

Listen :: Bloc Party vs. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Banquet

Bloc Party - "Ion Square"

Bloc Party's new record, Intimacy hit the digital retail world yesterday and it's huge. A near perfect combination of Silent Alarm and sophomore effort, A Weekend In The City, Intimacy might be the best rock album of the year. But most of that is riding on the last six-minutes and 33 seconds. The song is called "Ion Square," track 10. It's the album closer every record needs.

It's about loops. The song opens with a looping piano riff before absorbing some classic Bloc Party back-beat. Packaged snares and high-hats squeeze in. Synth-jabs syncopate and intertwine, as an angular guitar starts to bring up the bottom of the mix. Everything stays in place and nothing leaves. Every loop, every layer, is built upon the last. Your ears start to strain to pick up all the pieces and just. like. that: you're exploding into the first chorus. It's an exuberant affair and lyrically easy. "I carry your heart with me/I carry it in my heart." Is it poetry? Not quite. Maybe.

Around about 3:30, Kele vocally cuts loose and says the f-word. He says "slow it down" but you know damn well he doesn't mean that. The mix starts to get dangerous and the song is getting louder and louder in your ears. Each loop has taken on a hypnotic quality and you're nodding your head without thinking. As Kele is reaching into his upper register for "let's stay in/let the tv be our stars," this song finds a down-beat that could be the last 10-meters of an Olympic sprint. It's pounding. It's relentless. It's frantic. I carry your heart here with me.

At 5:09 it changes into the most uplifting piece of rock this year. As the final chorus erupts, no, becomes something else - all rising into a series of loops and Kele's escalating "ahhhs." They seem like the final ebullient part of an amazing design. The guitar is finding the top of the fret-board. The whole hypnotic mess has come to this: A 26-second piece of mp3 and stereo. 5:09-5:35. You vibrate. You lift off the ground. You just have to.

And then it's over. The loops unravel - an intentionally exposed design. You've either experienced 6:33 or 26. And either way, you've gotten some of the best bits of music this year. Because if those last 26-seconds don't make you feel something - don't take you somewhere special - I don't know what to say. Because I carry it with me.

Listen :: Bloc Party - Ion Square

New Bloc Party Album : Intimacy and "Trojan Horse"

When Kele from Bloc Party went on RadioOne in early July to debut the band's new single "Mercury," he mentioned the album might make it out around the turn of the calendar. Well, fast-forward that time table. It'll be out on Thursday, the 21st. The band becomes the latest to surprise fans with a digital release, well in advance of the physical album release on October 28. This tactic, "the intentional leak," is based in the principle that once promo albums go out to print publications (with their three-month leadtime) and radio stations, fans will find the record on their own (shhh, on the internet). It just makes sense to give it to them officially and let some of them buy it. So here we are: Bloc Party's new record, Intimacy comes out in two days and they've posted a new song to their myspace and the youtube kids have it already.

Bloc Party - "Trojan Horse"


The big question about a third record is the degree to which it departs or elaborates on the first two albums. In this case, the question looms particularly large because Bloc Party split production duties on the record between Paul Epworth (Silent Alarm) and Jacknife Lee (A Weekend ...). Kele told RadioOne that he had his reservations about the two working together but as you can hear on "Trojan Horse," you have just enough of Epworth's angular guitars and tense arrangements and just enough of Jacknife's over-the-top, anthemic style. Some of you hated "Mercury" even though the point was to make you unsettled. Some of you just hate this band. The rest of you, this album is gift horse. And it's about to light your city on fire.

On The List :: Bloc Party @ Webster Hall [8.6.08]

Bloc Party takes the stage with a false challenge. Lead singer, Kele Okereke says, "you know, New York, we're coming off some of the best shows of our career. You don't want to let Philly best you now?" Sure the band played Lollapallooza over the weekend but Philly? Telling a hungry New York crowd that Philly brought the noise is a bit like telling a speeding dump truck that there's a Kia at the of bottom of a hill that just won't move. Sure it will. Just watch.

The band isn't loud enough as they start to rip through "Hunting For Witches." The crowd won't stand for it and is pointing to the sky with the international symbol for "turn it up." It's hard to say if the band gets louder but the first 20 rows are at hurricane force from the jump. As the opening chords of "Positive Tension" sneak out of the speakers, Webster Hall claps along over our heads and into the night. It's a scene that will repeat itself at least 10 times before the night is through: a crowd of close to 1,500 clapping in unison and trying to bring the walls down.


("This Modern Love" @ Webster Hall 8.6.08)

The band closes their set with the three song tidal wave of "This Modern Love," "Song For Clay," and the still relevant "Banquet." It rockets you back to spring 2005 when you put "Banquet" on at your parties and you played "This Modern Love" for your girlfriend and it confirmed that the world was a beautiful, if broken, experiment. The band isn't done but the crowd works for an encore. We are clapping again and everyone is a little gassed.

(Kele sails to the stage)

The band returns with "Like Eating Glass" and we're in the second row trying to find our second wind. For 45 minutes, we've been breathing in other people's body heat and the crowd has metastasized into an almost mosh pit. It's 98.6 degrees or hotter. Kele rips off stage and into the (his) right side of the audience. He ends up about halfway back in the crowd against the wall, putting on some kind of magnanimous dance while the band rips through an instrumental "She's Hearing Voices." In the moment of the night, he sails out into the audience and rides a wave of hands towards the stage. It looks a little like a stop-motion video of a reverse stage dive. He rides the 40-plus feet to the stage and the band immediately kicks into "Helicopter." In China they're having earthquakes - New York is having Bloc Party.

They bow. They just played a four song encore. What else is there? So, they head backstage. Bloc Party roadies are turning off amps. No one moves. The clapping starts again. My ears are ringing. The amps get turned back on and here comes the band. Kele says we blew the pants off Philly but we already knew that. "Pioneers" is their real last song and the crowd finds one last blast of oxygen. It was 75 minutes of pure fanaticism. It was 75 minutes of energy and stage dives and getting pushed around by complete strangers. It was a rock band and a crowd killing themselves for the mutual hope of something transcendent. Well, it happened and 13 hours later the shirt drying on my doorknob is still damp enough to prove it. If anyone asks about Bloc Party, echo that epic last line of "Flux." We need to talk.

New Bloc Party :: "Mercury"

It's not supporting a new album but Bloc Party are back with another single release, "Mercury." In the spirit of their last single, "Flux," people are going to find this entirely unsettling. It's not quite the club banger that "Flux" briefly turned into but it dips in the same unregulated, electronic meat locker. Frontman Kele Okereke wrote "The Prayer" and just kept on going. Nothing is off-limits. What does this mean for their next record? Are we watching artistic growth or the kitchen sink being thrown into ProTools? Take a listen:



It's fated and battle cry all at once. When a planet goes in retrograde motion it is thought to astrologically predict certain events. The video, an obvious political allegory, seems to indicate the Western political system (read: ours, George Bush2, etc.) is completely and totally fucked. Is our president a lobster-clawed, Frankenstein creation? Bloc Party thinks so. It's hard to argue. As unsettling string-flourishes lifted right out of The Matrix burn in the background, Kele says, "you can be part of the war/from Silverlake to Williamsburg." He's calling the hip-set to conflict. And he's not done. The last meaningful lyrics are "this could be the start of something truly real/but all I could say was 'hey, hey, hey.'" It's a possible reference to "She's Hearing Voices," a song off the first Bloc Party record where Kele famously squeeks, "hey, hey, hey." It's damning and it's self-aware and by the fifth listen, "my Mercury's in retrograde" will be firmly in your head. It's just fate.