by JACK OATMON

There was a sweet little two-month period, about a year and change ago, when a whole lot of albums that I still play way too goddamn much came my way. I remember hearing the first singles from LCD Soundsystem, !!!, Bloc Party's Silent Alarm, DFA1979 and controller.contoller’s History all on the same mixtape. I was thoroughly knocked on my ass by this fresh jive of indie dance-rock and raging, manufactured disco. People called it dance-punk or electroclash or whatever—I try not to pay too much attention to the genre labels in this age of eclecticism. Either way, I still love that stuff and if you’re with me, it’s a good week.

Controller.controller hits Lambi with their incredibly fun live show on Saturday night, and You Say Party! We Say Die! will be alongside, doling out some synth-groove cyanide. Sa-weeet!

When I first heard Soulwax’s Any Minute Now, a priceless blend of raunchy rock and squeaky-clean electronic psychedelia, I was broke as a joke and unemployed. That did not stop me from borrowing a whole $60 and squandering it on overpriced Euro-import copies of both the album and the remix masterpiece, Nite Versions. What I’m trying to tell you here is that you should really be at the SAT this Tuesday, Sept. 19, even if you can’t swing the budget. Tiga, 2ManyDJs, the whole nine yards.

However, I do present you with a dilemma concerning your Tuesday-night money-burning. This article is, in large part, about dancing, or more generally, just bugging out to music, and I will contest that there is very little more torso-twisting than an evening with some classic Two-Tone ska. The last incarnation of the English Beat I saw nearly friction-burned my shoes off and, cheeseball that I am, I’ve listened to the Selecter’s Greatest Hits so many times that it’s pretty much tatooed onto my brain. See ’em at le National.

John Dahlback’s one of those producers who you always hear is really good, but none of your friends actually owns one of the albums, and no one seems to have Limewired him. I might just be speaking for myself here, but I felt like I should hop on the information autobahn for the curious masses, just in case. He’s produced a ton of tracks, but to box him into a convenient little generalization for you, my verdict is as follows: The ultra-refined, sorta cold, metallic production I heard has the corny vocals/deadset, 128-average bpm/four-on-the-floor house thing going on, with some growly pulsing, handclaps and the “let’s do drugs all night” feel of older techno. Should be interesting. It’s at the beautiful Fonderie Darling this Friday, and with this Dahlback cat, Bender, Mateo Murphy and Jeff Grosse on the decks and Ludwig rockin’ the pretty lights, I’m down for sure.

In the long-range forecast, we’ll be seeing some Scissor Sisters, a warm front of the Rapture, a return of Hot Chip and a Supersystem rolling in from the south.

WAXING WAMPETER OF YOUR DISCO KARASS… jack.oatmon@gmail.com

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