AU57: AU Stereo tracks

In which I wax lyrical about the tunes I was loving at the time…

MODERAT
SEAMONKEY
BPITCH CONTROL

Come join German supergroup Moderat (Modeselektor + Apparat) in the murk and the mire. This six-minute slice of thumping techno is notable for two things. One; the subtle way in which the textured synths and sonics ever so slowly entwine themselves around the seemingly unstoppable beat. Two; the fluttering breakdown two-thirds of the way through and, more importantly, the way it crashes back in with an entirely different, but even better, rhythm. Sehr gut, meine Herren.

FUTURE OF THE LEFT
ARMING ERITREA
4AD

Future Of The Left are a lot of things – loud, pissed-off, angular, righteous – but anthemic usually isn’t one of them. ‘Arming Eritrea’, the explosive first track on this issue’s Album Of The Month Travels With Myself And Another, goes some way to putting that right. Not being experts on the politics of eastern Africa, we’re not quite sure what Andy Falkous is hollering about, but it’s a glorious cacophony all the same. Welcome back, chaps.

NOT SQUARES
AYE YO PA (RICHTER COLLECTIVE)

It’s debut single time for Not Squares, but can the band bottle the tsunami of energy that they unleash every time they get onstage? ‘Course they can. While the homemade Wrok EP was charmingly ramshackle, there’s some real heft behind this one, a double A-side with ‘IYOUUSIT’. The rhythm pitches and lurches as Rachel Keenan’s synth twitters and the quartet declaim… something or other over the top. It doesn’t matter what, it sounds like it means something. This band already does.

PHOENIX
LISZTOMANIA (HOLY GHOST! LOVES PARIS REMIXOMANIA)
KITSUNE

The first track from Phoenix’s boxfresh new album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (aw yeah) gets a supercharged disco makeover from Brooklyn duo Holy Ghost!. While it’d be nice if HG! came up with a follow-up of their own to last year’s fantastic single ‘Hold On’, remixes like this bide the time nicely. The original’s stop-start jangle-pop is recast as a glitterball ass-shaker, with Thomas Mars’s vocals sitting surprisingly well over the sizzling synths.