This Monday night The Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Massachusetts will be graced by the presence of DFA Records‘ breakout stars Hot Chip. Although the proprietors of “the Hot Chip sound” are pretty much my favorite recording entity and live music act of the New Millennium I probably won’t be in attendance Monday. This is due both to the fact that the show’s been sold out for the last few weeks and my refusal to pay sky-high ticket-scalper (or ticket-broker as they like to be called) prices for tickets that are, at face value, relatively inexpensive.
That ticket-brokers and other unscrupulous characters (whose income has traditionally been Made in the Dark) even have tickets to a Hot Chip show at a venue like The Paradise sort of explains how and why the show sold out so fast to begin with. But it also begs the question; when the hell did ticket brokers start buying up tickets to random nightclub shows (the Hot Chip gig’s not the only one) by not-exactly-mainstream artists? The answer to that question is likely to remain as elusive as a pair of Hot Chop tickets for the designated sale price (and not one that’s a proverbial “Touch Too Much”) have proven since last month. Bummer…
Hot Chip aren’t the only Dance-Rock act on the scene though. Nor are they the only ones affiliated in some way with the Brooklyn-based production team and record label DFA. The label is of course responsible for releasing Hot Chip’s records here in the United States, and group-member Al Doyle moonlights playing guitar and percussion for label co-owner James Murphy’s project LCD Soundsystem. The label’s other owner, and the other half of the DFA production team, Tim Goldsworthy hasn’t always had the highest profile of the two, but he’s been having one hell of a year so far, producing Hercules and Love Affair’s stellar debut album for the DFA imprint and In Ghost Colours, the brand new sophomore full-length from Melbourne, Australia-based Dance-Rock trio Cut Copy, which just dropped on the Modular label earlier this week.
Cut Copy’s debut disc Bright Like Neon Love hit me right around the same time as Hot Chip’s Coming On Strong and, on the strength of a roller-skating jam called “Saturdays,” became a staple of mine and Emeyesi’s Urban Alternatives radio show alongside music from then rookie duo Chromeo and other clubby retro-Electro acts. When stuff from In Ghost Colours first started to leak it seemed like the band had traded their bubbly robo-Funk grooves in for a more straight-ahead Rock-based sound. But with Goldsworthy on board I held out hope that that wasn’t exactly the case. Singles like “Hearts on Fire” and “Lights and Music” allayed my fears, and their blend of Rock and Techno made me wonder if this is what “Nu Rave” was supposed to sound like.
In Ghost Colours is still a definite departure from the lighter Synthpop & Electro-influenced sound of Bright Like Neon Love, with guitars other live instrumentation figuring prominently in the mix alongside the synthesizers and drum-machines I’d expected. There’s a reverb-washed Shoegaze sheen to the album’s more band-y moments (”Feel the Love,” “Strangers in the Wind,” “Unforgettable Season,” “So Haunted,” “Midnight Runner,” etc) and the equilibrium the band establishes between Rock, Synthpop and overt Dance Music reminds me quite a lot of Depeche Mode’s Violator. But with Goldsworthy on board they don’t hesitate to aim tunes like “Far Away,” “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found,” “Out There On the Ice” and the aforementioned “Lights and Music” and “Hearts on Fire” squarely at the space beneath the mirror-ball and flashing lights.
Cut Copy “Far Away”
If you want to catch Cut Copy playing under some flashing lights on a stage near you catch them on their forthcoming North American tour alongside previous Blogarhythms featurees, Jacksonville, Florida’s Black Kids (who have a new video clip for “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend” floating around online) from late-April through mid-May. Just make sure you beat the brokers to the box office!
- El Keter