1. Feel The Pressure
2. Die On The Floor
3. The Vaguest of Feeling
4. If I Can't Have You Nobody Can
5. Katherine Hit Me
6. Backwards Of My Face
7. Feeling Kind of Anxious
8. Feel The Envy
9. Be AfraidScottish rock outfit Franz Ferdinand will release "Blood," its second album of 2009, on June 1 through Domino. The nine song set is a dub version of the group's third album, "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand," which was released this past January. "Blood" was originally packaged in the deluxe and box-set versions that were initially available.
On "Tonight," the group worked with Dan Carey (Lee "Scratch" Perry, Mad Professor) - so it would make sense that the work would lend itself to a dub treatment. Speaking to Billboard in November 2008, lead singer Alex Kapranos described Carey as having "a different dynamic than other producers."
"I think with anything, it has to be a collaboration and we find ourselves bouncing off one another rather well," Kapranos says of the group's work with Carey. "He's coming from that Jamaican perspective - there's much more space; the bass guitar leads a lot more on this record than anything else."
"He was very relaxed and fit in very easily into the band dynamic," added bassist Bob Hardy. "He's very interested in the process of making a record and that kind of world. He'd spend five hours working on a particular sound that will only be on the record for like three seconds worth."
In conjunction with Record Store Day this past weekend, the group released a limited edition vinyl version of 500 to record stores. The newly packaged version of "Blood" will feature one new song, "Be Afraid" which is a reworked version of "Dream Again."
Franz Ferdinand is currently in the midst of a U.S. tour through May 8...www.billboard.com
01. Wilco (The Song)
02. Deeper Down
03. One Wing
04. Bull Black Nova
05. You and I
06. You Never Know
07. Country Disappeared
08. Solitaire
09. I'll Fight
10. Sonny Feeling
11. Everlasting EverythingPlain grey backdrop for A Ghost is Born. And then the ominous swirling birds on Sky Blue Sky. So how does Wilco follow all these very seriously titled records, with very seriously arty covers? Why, with Wilco (The Album), of course. And if the title alone wasn't enough to derail their melancholy train of records, they revealed the art work for their upcoming album and, well, there's a llama in a party hat. With this shot, we've either just missed the neatest, lamest kid's party of all time, or we're the first guests at a shindig that may, impossibly, be taking place in Germany, or at least on the patio of one of those weird cheese shops buried in the dark corner of your local mall. But while it's nice to see these guys lightening up, it's good to know they didn't go too crazy and ignore the strict llama leash laws. They're on the books for a reason, kids.
Wilco (The Album) will be out June 30 (at the latest, according to the band) on Nonesuch.
1. Down With Giants
2. Stain On The Floor
3. Action Cop
4. Unblinking Sun
5. Third World Limo
6. Your Own Militia
7. Church Buffet
8. Group Think
9. Girl Pop Soda
10. Wavey Graves
11. Curses
12. Scythian Sculls
13. Asleep In The DirtHow can a band named Gay Witch Abortion stir any more controversy? Simple. Take forever to release an album, then make one and call it Maverick. That word, and the initials ‘RNC,’ aren’t taken too kindly to by folks in these parts. Maverick could be considered the protest soundtrack to the Republican National Convention, setting a tone reminiscent of Trans Am’s Liberation, an album released in a post-9/11 Washington D.C. Envision protesters marching on the State Capitol to “Down With Giants,” then getting run down and tear-gassed by the “Action Cop.” In keeping with post rock form, Gay Witch Abortion minimizes the human element behind the guitar and drums. Songs with vocals are used as experiments in sound. The lyrics don’t matter, what does is the final product, what each song builds into by the end of its progression. Some songs are easier to digest, like “Unblinking Sun,” that sounds just as the song’s title suggests. But this kind of rock isn’t about making it easy on the listener. This is art rock, music that forces the listener to intellectualize what’s going on, without providing any answers.
1. Daddy
2. Glo Balls
3. Monk Hummer
4. 911
5. Mary Unmargaret
6. Girls Just Wanna (Time to Have Sex)The pantheon of great sleazy sex records includes the depraved minimalist funk of Prince’s Dirty Mind and the squalid bedroom drama of Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Gang Gang Dance’s Lizzi Bougatsos and Growing’s Sadie Laska make a bold attempt at joining such lurid company with The Proper Sex, their first album as I.U.D. It’s a witty, spooky and abrasive record that mixes spacious dubby beats with the noise assault of the Melvins and Unsane.
Bougatsos and Laska open with the shrill metallic percussion of “Daddy.” The heliumized Kate Bush vocals will be familiar to Gang Gang Dance fans, although this music is brutally tribalistic, with less of the glazed pop of Saint Dymphna and more of the infinite space of God’s Money. The second track, “Glo Balls,” is fueled by a murderous vocal reminiscent of Whitehouse’s William Bennett or just about anyone signed to Amphetamine Reptile in the early ‘90s. It’s propelled by some jarring no-wave primitivism that sounds wonderfully debauched, variously recalling Suicide, “11,000 Volts” by Mars and the willful antagonism of early Swans...
If “Daddy” and “Glo Balls” are the foreplay, then “Monk Hummer” is an introduction to the level of degradation at which I.U.D. operates. It’s a mish-mash of porn-film inspired samples and a sludgy stop-start rhythm reminiscent of Coil and the incidental music from ‘70s splatter movies. “Monk Hummer” induces the same kind of dizzy disorientation that occurs when you unexpectedly emerge into bright sunlight from a darkened movie theater. It’s a woozy, drunken and scrappily distended track that leads into the full-on intercourse of “911” and “Mary Unmargaret.”
By this point, Bougatsos and Laska are flooding The Proper Sex with sound, abrasively adjoining coarse musical dissonance with Brian Chippendale-style grunts and lyrics like, “Someone please call the doctor/ I’ve been shot through the heart.” When they get to the album’s finale, “Girls Just Wanna (Time to Have Sex),” they’re touching you in ways that don’t feel comfortable at all. Joined by Rites of Spring guitarist Mike Fellows, the threesome produce the aural equivalent of having some large household appliances shoved into several orifices, all at the same time.
Bougatsos and Laska clearly have impeccable taste, as witnessed by the album’s cover, which pays warm homage to Sparks’ classic Big Beat. That said, The Proper Sex isn’t going to be much of a turn on for Gang Gang Dance fans enamored by the squelchy acid rhythms of Saint Dymphna. But it is a welcome blast of pungent discord, driven by a lurid sexuality that feels both filthy and funny. And they could definitely pull Prince out of his creative stupor by letting him produce the next I.U.D. album...www.prefixmag.com
