We’ve got a special Electric Picnic edition of Download Tracks of the Week Electric for you lucky people featuring performers U.N.K.L.E., Fight Like Apes and Crystal Castles. Get downloading.
By Robert Carry
Unkle Blackout. Download here.
Unkle has had something of a rolling line-up since its original incarnation as a trip-hop outfit way back in 1994. But while the door revolved and the strange new musical directions came and went, the UK group has managed to produce consistently good work.
Although recent offerings have been receiving strong reviews, we can’t help but use the fact that the UK act has rolled into town as an excuse to dip back to one of our favourates, Blackout. She’s a slow starter but be warned – when the beat drops you’re going to want to break something. Unkle’s collaboration with Ian Brown ran us close on this one, but we decided against it due to the fact that most people have heard it millions of times before. Enjoy.
Listen here:
Crystal Castles, Baptism. Download here.
The likes of Arcade Fire, Metric and now Crystal Castles have brought about a bizarre, twilight zone-type scenario in which Canadian music is feckin’ decent. While neither of the former will be flying their maple-leafed flag over Stradbally this weekend, Crystal Castles have agreed to bring their experimental electronic music sound to the stage.
The Toronto outfit are known for their downright mental live gigs so they will be among the must-sees for festival goers in the know. There sound is a difficult one to pin down and an attempt to do so in music magazine style is rather pointless when I can simply shout, ‘Alacazam!’ And a YouTube clip of their track Baptism suddenly appears under this paragraph – enjoy.
Listen here:
Fight Like Apes, Lend me Your Face (80sKidz remix). Download here.
We’re all praying that Hoo Ha Henry, the first single from Fight Like Apes’ second album (The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner), isn’t indicative of where the band is headed, but we here at JOE have a horrible feeling that it just might be. Better to hark back to better days when the band’s tendency towards gimmickry, fake American accents and needlessly long song titles didn’t grate as much as they do now.
The original version of Lend me Your Face was a decent tune, if a tad repetitive, but the 80sKidz remix adds hugely to the track that was one of the most fondly remembered of the Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion album.
Listen here:
