Can’t Help The State I’m In

The Russian Futurists “Our Pen’s Out Of Ink” – Every week, I listen to at least thirty new albums and eps, mostly by artists that I’ve never heard before. The genres can be all over the map, but every week I am nearly guaranteed to screen at least two records that are obviously inspired by one trend or another from the 1980s and/or old video game soundtracks. In spite of what is being said in several lazy reviews of the new Russian Futurists album that you can easily find via Google, their new album is not one of them. I can’t possibly imagine what these reviewers are hearing in this record that is particularly ’80s aside from the presence of keyboards, and the keyboard textures being used aren’t particularly reminiscent of textures widely used in that decade! (Well, the guy’s voice is a little bit like Green Gartside. I’ll allow that.) If anything, Our Thickness is a record that could not possibly exist without the ’90s happening first. The big distorted beats are equal parts industrial and David Friddmann; the tendency to obscure the vocals behind a loud, overwhelming arrangement is straight out of lo-fi and shoegazing; the cut-up style is definitely post-Beck; and the general cheery sound of the album is right in line with the wave of joycore pop coming out of this current decade. But oh no, it’s a record with a lot of electronic keyboards on it and it’s not dance music – it must be 80s retro, right? I SWEAR TO GOD IT JUST MAKES ME WANT TO PERFORM AMATEUR SURGERY ON THESE PEOPLE WITH MY FACE KNIFE. (Click here to buy it from Upper Class.)

Juliet “On The Dance Floor” – Wow, this is like the best Garbage song ever. There’s a certain lightness and grace to this track that I think is missing from Garbage’s actual recordings, which usually seem overbearing and leaden to my ears. The song has a wonderful velocity to it, as though it’s a rollercoaster building up to an exhilirating peak and then dropping you off quickly after the grand finale. Excellent stuff. (Click here to visit the official Juliet site.)