Stereo Jealousy

“I was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practice in a loft in New York City. I was working on the organ sounds…”

James Murphy may not have been in the loft he described in 2002’s seminal “Losing My Edge” but he’s come as close as possible to working on the organ sounds on his new single – “Bye Bye Bayou“. A cover of Suicide vocalist Alan Vega’s 1981 track this new LCD cut unveils a flexing synth bassline underneath a typically restrained Murphy vocal. Taut, without ever really letting rip over its 7 minutes, this is reminiscent more of the early LCD singles rather than anything from Sound of Silver and I’m loving it. Bizarrely, this is the first decent thing I’ve heard about first from the radio in years, and it was Radio 1! Amazon has it listed as a 12” vinylavailable from November 9.  Hopefully this is a taster of the band’s upcoming material – a new album is eagerly awaited in these quarters in early 2010.

And if you fancy seeing Suicide, the band are playing as part of ATP’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ series in May next year, performing their eponymous debut record alongside the Stooges playing Raw Power. See the ATP website for tickets.

LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou

I’ve waited right until the end of the year to unleash my lists – and they’ll be coming over the next few days.

• Top 40 tracks
• Top 40 albums
• Top 10 live shows
• Best Artwork
• Biggest letdowns

To kick off, here’s the first installment of the tracks countdown.

	40: The Ting Tings – Shut Up And Let Me Go Columbia I’m starting my 2008 countdown with a confession; I was wrong. Wrong to blast this Salford duo as force-fed music industry pap. I’ll still count my bile as valid againts the horrendous That’s Not My Name, but this and stablemate Great DJ are perfect pop songs. MP3 Video
	39: Foals – The Race For Radio Supremacy Transgressive Foals entered 2008 as media darlings, yet some of the hype faltered in the news that Antidotes would not include Hummer or Mathletics. Yet the record was still intriguing, and probably benefited from the lack of big-single syndrome. This is the pick of the LP for me. MP3 Buy Antidotes
	38: LCD Soundsystem – Big Ideas DFA After a blistering 2007 where James Murphy and co strode above end-of-year lists like a colossus, Big Ideas was a rare 2008 outing for LCD. The knowledge of pop-hook craft remained, and this cut from the soundtrack to 21 is no mere offcut from Sound Of Silver. MP3 Buy Big Ideas
	37: Madonna – 4 Minutes Warner A huge success from the otherwise disappointing Hard Candy LP. Surely it would be difficult to fail with a superstar team of Madge, Timberlake & Timbaland? One of the pop records of 2008. MP3 Video Buy 4 Minutes
	36: The B-52s – Eyes Wide Open Astralwerks “I don’t want to clash, I don’t want to rehash the past” Kate sings, and it is no rehash – I never dared to think that the B-52s would sound this good, this up to date, yet so utterly them in 2008. A totally unexpected pleasure. MP3 Buy Funplex
	35: Mogwai – Batcat Wall of Sound There’s no following of the post-rock quiet-loud-quiet formula here, Batcat belts out of the speakers obliterating everything in it’s path. A highlight of their excellent 2008 live shows, where it sounded even louder and even more vital. MP3 Video Buy Batcat
	34: The Kills – U.R.A. Fever Domino Scuzzy, short and superb. The Kills finally got some mainstream exposure for this record – and that was before Jamie Hince’s massively publicized on-off thing with super-stick Kate Moss. MP3 Video Buy U.R.A. Fever
	33: Duffy – Rockferry Polydor Originally released at the back end of 2007, well before her media star began its rise, Rockferry is a rare treat, a blue-eyed soul classic and free of the Winehouse-isms that afflict the rest of her debut LP. MP3 Video Buy Rockferry
	32: Errors – Cutlery Drawer Rock Action Signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action, Glaswegians Errors outshone their illustrious stablemates in 2008. Cutlery Drawer is slightly atypical of their output, featuring a stark spoken word vocal by Londoner George Pringle. Wonderful. MP3 Buy It’s Not Something But It Is Like Whatever
	31: Emiliana Torrini – Gun Rough Trade How had I never caught Ms Torrini before? It was only an Amazon recommendation that belatedly turned me on to Me And Armini. Housed within was this staggering track – dark, taut and twisted with a breathy vocal to die for. MP3 Buy Me And Armini

They’ve split up… Oh no they haven’t!

LCD Soundsystem’s constituent parts caused a fluster in my world earlier today when the comic quoted live guitarist Al Doyle as saying the project was on permanent hold. He followed this by claiming Murphy and bandmates would record and tour with a series of disco singers, leaving behind the LCD name.

Mere hours later and an about turn came from Murphy himself, who revealed he had an album’s worth of new material sitting in his cranium. Sounding a little Bon Iverish he went on to say the album would be recorded solo, away from New York sometime next year. So, does this mean a new LCD album in ‘09? I really, really hope so. Sound of Silver was just incredible, and as a live act they are improbably good. Here’s to good news (in the end) and the first album announcement for 09 that has me excited…

LCD Soundsystem – Us vs Them

Photo: eMA!

A new LCD Soundystem tune is a big event for this blogger. This one has spread like wildfire over the internet, taken from the soundtrack to 21. The tracklist contains other such luminaries as MGMT, Broadcast, Amon Tobin and U.N.K.L.E. as well as Rihanna’s obnoxiously catchy Shut Up And Drive: a proper guilty pleasure that one. Anyway Big Ideas is more similar to LCD Soundsystem-era Murphy than the more recent stuff, and a darn sight more poppy too. Yes, it starts with skittery high hats and then a suitably flexible bassline joins in the fun, but apart from that this isn’t LCD-by-numbers. It finishes with a glitchy guitar sound, more akin to DFA cohorts Hot Chip, quite possibly Al Doyle’s influence there. Anyway, it is a good track, and nice to see that there is new stuff being produced.

The film borrows the true-story of a group of MIT students who employ a sophisticated card counting system to beat a big casino. I doubt it will be as good as the documentary aired by BBC Horizons last year that featured the actual perpetrators, but still.

Download here / Buy 21 OST here