March 11, 2006
The Freelance Hellraiser may be best know for his mashups of other’s work, A Stroke of Genius (Strokes vs Aguilera) being the best known, or for his quite frankly excellent DJ sets and he’s managed to bring the same atmosphere to his own songs.
See that – I said “songs” about a dance artist, and that’s the appeal here, two fine dance tracks that also work well as two great songs.
Want You To Know is by far the lovliest new tune I have heard in a good long while. There’s not much to the track musically, such a simple repeated refrain but if I tell you the video has a happy kite, dancing alphabeti-spaghetti and a smiling giraffe (as well as images of graveyard rain & aerial bombing) then maybe that helps explain the fantastic laid back, summer afternoon / bright sunday morning upbeat tempo, an absolutely great chill out dance track.
Pound For Pound is much less laid back and more likely to get you moving but still on the bright sunday morning, summer vibe chill out side of dance compared to other tracks from the upcoming album these two are lifted from.
Available to stream online for a couple of months now and as a white label since way back in 2003 Want You To Know has eventually only been released in shops as a “very limited” edition since the end of February – I’ve had it on my “buy as soon as released” list but cheques have to clear y’know… Packaging it with Pound For Pound only improved the deal.
March 10, 2006
This is “Melodic Punk Rock”. Let me get that out of the way straight off. It’s emo and I like it.
It has enough energy and quickly picked up hooks to be worthwhile searching out the tracks available online (yes, they have a myspace page). I like it. But that’s as far as it goes—there’s nothing new here, which is fair enough from an album written a full year ago now, but it’s taken a while for Disco Ensemble to be picked up on outside of Helsinki by anyone other than the uber-cool music press. I’m still reading how they are “one of Finland’s best kept secrets” which is a shame as they do appear to have invested more in the music and less in the image than similar bands.
Tracks Black Euro and We Might Fall Apart would fit nicely as standard fare on almost every radio station these days but Drop Dead Casanova stands out to me as a track that would definitely be kicking me towards the dancefloor for a good emo session in the Garage or Cathouse, it has all the required kit pieces: shouty sing along chorus hook; fringe swinging guitar bridges; and the essential mellower bits in the middle to catch your breath, fix your hair and take a draw on that menthol to reassert scene cred.
Not to everyone’s taste due to the anti-popularity backlash alternative folks tend towards but if you like The Kaiser Chiefs and their ilk then I reckon you’d be stupid not to check these guys out.
First Aid Kit is apparently still only on import from Fullstream Records but Disco Ensemble will be visiting the UK in May for The Great Escape event in Brighton.
