Fuck Dance, Let’s Art by Various Artists
LABEL: !K7

It’s increasingly hard to keep pace with the all out onslaught of new music flooding the net’s vast array of blogs, torrents, portals, zines and twitter feeds. But it’s not impossible. And if you’ve been paying attention at all the last couple years, there’s a good chance you might already have a handful of the hits found on !K7’s new collection Fuck Dance, Let’s Art.

In a nutshell, this is the ironically tattooed, curly mustached, apathetic hipster version of those Now That’s What I Call Music! compilations. It’s just a neatly packaged highlight reel. And although it may seem a little lazy, it’s not such a horrible concept.  Like the one hit wonders who populate Now, the back catalogs of many of the artists featured on Fuck Dance, Let’s Art are a little shallow. In a lot of cases, these jams are about as good as it gets with this crew, to this point. 

So how do you even review a disc like this? After extensive contemplation, track-by-track is seemingly the only fair approach to give you, fair reader, an honest peek into the heart of this tragically titled album.

01. Baghdaddy – “Hot Shit (Creep Remix)” :  A pleasant merger of chopped and screwed ghetto tech built around creepy haunted house vocals and some dominatrix spoken word … a strangely successful formula.
 
02. Balam Acab – “See Birds” : Apparently they’re calling this 19-year-old college student’s sound “witch house” and maybe that’s fitting. What’s certain is that this is a total slow motion masterpiece and this kid has a mountain of good taste and talent to spare.

03. Peter’s House Music – “Body Heat” : This sounds a lot like something Dave Clarke would have made in 1996. And that’s not a bad thing.

04. Small Black – “Despicable Dogs” : Steeped in fuzz, skittish drum machines and total indifference, this is the kind of track that will probably be on your stereo if you’re having a party in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

05. Toro y Moi – “Fax Shadow” :  Totally awesome glitchy white guy R&B. That’s all you need to know.

06. Hideous Men – “Tangled” : Hideously jarring opening :30, but if you can hang in there, this glittery stunner has the electronics of vintage Postal Service and the self-assured vocals of The Knife.

07. Salva – “Anything” : Standard issue medium tempo techno … pleasant, but maybe a little out of place on an album so steeped in experimental?

08. Washed Out – “Feel It All Around” :  Good Vibes called and they want their theme song back.

09. Truman Peyote – “Kartwheels” :  Easily the early front runner for worst band name of the decade, but if you can look past the complete lack of sanity in the titles, this one is actually a total jam. Buzzy bass, tribal chanting and psychedelic synths all make for a very fine tune here. 

10. Psychobuildings – “Paradise” : This sounds a lot like a b-side from Echos-era The Rapture … bizarro The Rapture recording with mouthfuls of Quaaludes.

11. Animal Collective – “My Girls” : In some circles, saying this is the best Animal Collective song ever would probably spark days worth of argument. Who cares?  This is the best Animal Collective song ever recorded.

12. Crystal Castles VS HEALTH – “Crimewave” : Like “My Girls” before it, this song is a little out of place on an album of mostly emerging talents. And although Crystal Castles have gone on to make an incredible follow up to the album on which this first appeared, this was the early evidence that these snotty Canadians were meant for world domination. 

13. Raw Moans – “Aqua Net” : Electro hipster love ballads are just as bad as you might imagine them to be.

14. Pictureplane – “Transparent Now (Thin Veil)” : This one is total audio narcotics with just the right amount of vocal fuzz, trance-educing channel manipulation and staccato drum machines.

15. The Phenomenal Handclap Band – “15 to 20 (Bim Marx Remix)” :  Pass.

16. oOoOO – “Sedsumthing” : Another name that’s dumb enough to make you want to hit skip, but avoid the temptation. This one is a spooky builder that rocks a nice tempo change toward the conclusion. 

17. Memory Tapes – “Bicycle (Horrors Cosmic Dub)” : Cinematic and spooky, this one takes a minute to hit full stride, but when the bass and trippy keys all start to converge, the apex is complex and incredibly well-executed.

18.  Bear In Heaven – “Lovesick Teenager” : Probably the most straightforward, pop-friendly tune on the album, this one stitches together mathematically precise electro drummer boy beats with warm and nasally vocals. Solid tune.

In the end, this whole collection plays a little like an art school fashion show—there’s clearly some talent in the room, but several ideas tend to run a bit wild. But by and large, this is the cream of the crop from a solid collection of emerging artists and producers. And Fuck Dance, Let’s Art is a decent audio CliffsNotes to the last year or two of their critically acclaimed output.  


REVIEWED BY ALEC BRINEGAR
ALEC’S FAVORITE TRACKS: “My Girls” • “Crimewave” • “Feel it All Around”


FREE MP3: “Despicable Dogs” by Small Black (right-click & save)