New Music: !!!, Damero, BPitch Control Camping Vol. 3

!!! - Must Be The Moon (Warp 2007)

!!! - Myth Takes / Warp

The other day I got the disturbing news that some friends had just purchased a robot for their home. Sure, it cleans the floor, it's entertainment for guests, but it could very well choke you to death while you sleep. Have they not seen Terminator? It's clear where this leads!!! We live in mythical times; the last hundred years or so have been all eggshells and humanity working hard not to fluff its lines. We are always living history and it's important to keep in mind how all this bullshit may affect the people of the future. With Myth Takes, !!! is set on crafting a utopian state where we will all be excellent to one another; the otherwise uptight will dance freely until sunrise and the only crime will be acting a square. This set of ten songs connects to form a raging party monster of an album, and once listened, all converts will emerge into the world with their eyes truly opened, charged with issuing the word to all non-believers.

I can speak to the transformative power of Myth Takes. Blasting "Must Be The Moon" post-work is a recipe for danger. Its 2am and I don't know how many shots I've done but I do know they've all been different liquors. Such is the way of riding the snake and it's soooo easy to get lost in these perpetual party jams, tweaked and measured to perfection. As compared to their prior two full-lengths, Myth Takes feels more like a full realization of !!!'s sound. I loved Louden Up Now but it lost the plot at points, but even the longer tracks here ("Heart of Hearts", "Bend Over Beethoven") are more concise and keep jabbing you right between the eyes until the very end. Some of the versatility has to do with John XI stepping up on vocal duties, off-setting Nic Offer's close-talking street smarts with a debonair soul treatment that falls somewhere between Teddy Pendergrass and Prince. "A New Name" is a jittery dance-punk classic, creating a nervous vibe that for some reason reminds me of Ray Parker Jr's Ghostbusters song hyping the part where the boys in beige roll up on the Staypuff Marshmellow Man.

"Heart Of Hearts" has been going around the internets for a minute now and its certainly the album's centerpiece and the best song !!! has written to date. Its the essence of dance music, distilled and bottled, for whenever you want to pop the top on a ridiculous evening. But what about the guy that once told the president to suck his fucking dick? Don't worry, Myth Takes finds Nic Offer in usual rare form, getting the party started when everyone else is still nervously avoiding eye contact. On the title cut, Offer imparts, "Sometimes it's really just like the movies / Sometimes you just stay home and watch movies", amid sha-sha-sha-doobies and twangy dustbowl guitars. It's a cheeky way to start the record, surprisingly brief at less than three minutes, a song to silence all the haters. "All My Heroes Are Weirdos" is the "Pardon My Freedom" of this record, on the political tip but much more subtle, begging the question, "Why should we talk about what should be / When we could talk about what could be", decrying the fact that the politicians in this country, specifically the weak-kneed liberal variety, keep dropping the ball, and more importantly don't even have someone you'd want to carry the rock when it matters most.

So Myth Takes...what does that mean anyhow? !!! are really into open-ended meaning. I mean, I could sit around with a few friends and riff on this band for a good hour. That's the vital thing, !!! creates talking points in the face of micro-genre trends and up-to-the-second indie rock news tickers. They're ultimately debatable, possessing the timeless blend of musical innovation and aesthetical ambiguity that makes a band truly mythical.



Damero - Passage To Silence (ft. Apparat) (BPitch Control 2007)

Damero - Happy In Grey / BPitch Control

I wish I had a girlfriend that listened to Damero. I think that would be perfect, throwing on Happy In Grey on a rainy day, making some hot tea, a Bergman film shifting silently in the background. That's ideal, though, having anyone at all to enjoy this record alongside you. Damero's debut long-player is one for the happily isolated, those who can find warmth in melancholy, and self-satisfaction where others can only find loneliness. It walks a grey line, in between action and inaction, homing in on the minutiae of every day life.

Damero's story is an interesting one. Working as BPitch Control's promotions arm, Damero (aka Marit Posch) quietly went about her business recording at home on her laptop. That is until lightning struck and Ellen Allen heard her material and the rest is history. With help from friends Henri Hagenow, Apparat, Zander VT, and others, Happy In Grey is an expertly-crafted album, shimmering with complex feminine charm. "Mope" is the lead track and no doubt may perk a few ears in the Grey's Anatomy camp. Its the kind of plain-spoken, moodlit electro-pop that could reach a wider audience in a perfect world. It seems teaming up with Apparat is a smart move these days; his collaboration with Ellen Allien (Orchestra of Bubbles) was one of the best electro records of 2006, and he brings robust, grainy ambience to "Passage To Silence", a song celebrating such a simplistic notion as the beauty of sound. "Gerstern Morgen", produced with Nevin Peak, is another outright winner, with a lazy day guitar lick merging with glitchy production on this beautiful number sung in German.

Happy In Grey is an interesting addition to the already strong BPitch Control catalog. Interesting in that its one of the few records on BPitch not meant for the dancefloor. Still, it fits the label's aesthetic of moody, minimal electronic work, but hopefully it won't be pigeonholed because of the label it finds itself on. All things perfect, this record will be found by the right people and will fit nicely alongside other essential bedroom electronica.



Various Artists - Camping Vol. 3 (BPitch Control 2007)

Ellen Allien & Apparat - Red Planets / BPitch Control

It's been a strange, perilous trip coming back around to electronic music. I spent my high school years as a hopeless europhile, convinced that my American sensibilities were somehow inferior to those "across the pond". I flirted with DJ'ing, pledged allegiance to the Ministry of Sound, and even owned some Kikwearz. But that's before I got the joke, the unseen danger of culture, how eventually it all becomes a walking parody of itself. So I buried my past never to look back.

Eventually I exhausted all the possibilities. Music directing painted me jaded and I needed something new, something not rock. Thats when Ellen Allien came into my life; Berlinette hit me like a ton of chrome bricks and I returned to the dark side. Further investigation into the BPitch catalog uncovered Modeselektor, Smash TV, and Apparat; three rather different types of electronic artist, at least to my virgin ears that had for too long been blasted by bass, guitar, and drums.

So here I am, in too deep, a slave to Beatport and about to drop serious dosh on a laptop. BPitch is still here with me, demanding I cop at least one song from everything they release. This is the third installment of the label-wide Camping compilation. It functions like all good compilations should, providing newbies with something to go on, as well as giving those in the know a heads up about new material. The compact disc version of Camping is certainly a teaser, like you just know theres no way that Paul Kalkbrenner track is only 4 1/2 minutes. And assuredly, to get the full-length track you have to wait on the forthcoming Camping 12" series or snatch the songs from your favorite mp3 vendor.

Marketing strategies aside, this is a wonderful introduction to the sleek, smart electro practitioners of the Berlin-based BPitch Control. Label-founder Ellen Allien joins forces once again with Apparat to create another sweeping epic, "Red Planets", continuing their stellar work from last year's Orchestra of Bubbles. Paul Kalkbrenner has been a monolithic master as of late; "Der Sennat" is as deep as it is wide, propelling big room techno into something smarter than bucka-bah builds. Its grandeios in all the right ways. Staying on the minimal side of things, Larsson takes us to a cyberpunk mecca with "Off Voices". Seriously, this dude always manages to make that wonderfully dark, propulsive sound that I imagine would be perfect for Berlin in January.

As popular as minimal techno is at the moment, Bpitch's roster has much more on offer. Feadz, maybe more widely known as Uffie's DJ/producer, swings a concrete block of hard Detroit techno, laser-zapping us all into oblivion. Modeselektor are still on that other kryptonite, that of the eurocrunk variety, with a space-age ragga jam. Tomas Andersson is perhaps the most prolific Bpitch artist, always hard to peg, and the weirdo-funk of "Go To Disco" is no exception, with cracked-out vocoder and a devil on your shoulder telling you that the disco is the place to be for romance! As for returning techno romance to your life, look for further than the BPitch Control crew.