LCD Soundsystem: New Body Rhumba (2022)

I recently watched Noah Baumbach's film White Noise , which is described as an absurdist comedy-drama, based on the book by Don DeLillo. For me it was a  David Lynch-like obscurantist meh-fest, yet with some delightful fluffy retro feels. Every time Adam Driver opened his mouth though, my inner Ewok kept screaming “You killed Han Solo” to the extent that it over-rode any critical appreciation of the film. The whole gig was rescued at the end by the minutely choreographed supermarket dance scene set to the track New Body Rhumba by LCD Soundsystem.

New Body Rhumba , the first single LCD have created in four years, has already been nominated by Critics' Choice Movie Awards (Best Song), North Dakota Film Society, Music City Film Critics Association, North Carolina Film Critics Association, Pandora International Film Critics , Chicago Indie Critics (all for Best Original Song) and Hollywood Music in Media Awards (Best Original Song in a Feature Film). No doubt it will be nominated for more film music awards, and might even win one of them at some point unless it dies of nomination-suffocation syndrome.

Whilst others have referred to its post-modern punky anti-capitalist lyrics, I was more flabbergasted by the great similarity of New Body Rhumba to the music of the B52s. And weirdly enough, whilst it is generally agreed that the B52s don't get enough credit for their services to punk-kind, it transpires that James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem founder) voiced this very opinion during a 2013 Red Bull Music Academy Lecture. So, tell me if he didn't at least once think to himself 'hey am I writing an 80's style B52s tribute song here?'. I would have no complaints if he did.

Wet Leg: Chaise Longue (French Version, 2022)

With a track called Chaise Longue, it makes sense to have a French version, but it should've been recorded first, right? 

Bill Mason Band: Billy & The Rotas (1979)

Dodging the brick busses labbed from Moss Side, we gloomed steadily into the metropolis; a rickety sweat room above Jilly’s Rockworld on Oxford Rd, cloaked in shadow & smoke as sweet & sickly as patchouli. Each step up the stairs was another beckoning increment of Elysium as riffs wafted to greet us, the doorway at the top was a throbbing mouth which greedily swallowed us alive. A young teenager in the early 80’s, I had never been to a gig before. And this was a special gig, clad in leather with wide hollow eyes darting each & every which way, keen as prairie winds. A petulant strobe punctuated the swollen red glow of the room. Christian punk? Incredulous though it sounds even now, The Bill Mason Band were that rarest of things; animal, organic and raw with a Medieval purity spewing baleful St. Anthony’s Fire in every lyric. The End Times were here, tonight. I had wagged it from school earlier just to see them on TV debuting Mr. G from their only album No Sham! On screen, in the born again clinique of white studio lighting, overexposed & immaculately buffed the BMB were a shimmering contrast with tonight’s hedonistic fervour. Here, in the dark, the primal sweat and orgy of irrepressible raw sound, strangers became one animal, the Body of Christ lashing frantically at invisible phantasms of Hell, finding redemption in the storm of the strobe & driven like hail in the razor sharp pulsar of Dave Rawding’s snare.

You can forget all your troubles in this place

Forget your name, forget your face

Feel y’ heart suddenly begin to race

I thought this was a dancin’ concert

You got me here under false pretences

What a swizz! Talkin’ ‘bout God & heavenly showbiz!

Review:

Jesus Freak Hideout

North Utsire