New Music: Klaxons, LCD Soundsystem

In a month of big-deal releases (as is the way of the industry), two in particular will appeal to those more interested in dance music. They are two groups both diametrically opposed and inextricably linked. They are the current faces of rock-meets-dance. Their approaches are radically different, the end-product is no less the same, and yet both are combating a torrent of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic. It now seems appropriate for that post.













Klaxons - It's Not Over Yet (Geffen 2007)

Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future / Geffen

The first half of this post is the story of a group that has taken the mantle of This Year's "It" Brits. The ink spilled both for and against this band has been phenomenal in The Isles, but at last Americans get to see what all this New Rave lark is about in its purest form. Indeed, the Midlands-bred New Cross kids in Klaxons are seen as the torchbearers of a movement that has swept through the UK almost as fast as Arctic Monkeys in the fall of '05 (though Hadouken! deserve a mention here as "That Boy That Girl" is obnoxiously catchy; Shitdisco ain't half-bad either). While the 'Monkeys are busy recording with Dizzee Rascal and working with James Ford for their sophomore let-down, Klaxons are busy on the up-and-up kicking up a neon-inflected storm of press for their debut.

There is plenty of reason to be skeptical. Their garb is ecstasy chic and their Kicks Like a Mule-inspired debut single "Atlantis to Interzone" has all the literal alarms and buoyant exuberance a movement like rave once inspired. What people love to hate about rave is that it seems like such a transitory stage or phase: Rave doesn't think long-term, it thinks tonight and tonight alone. Such are the ways of hedonism. Why would anyone want this back other than the disintergration of a lot of institutions as we know them (the media and, more particularly, the music industry) is causing a lot of people to take an almost apocalyptic-fatalistic view of the future? Is this a myth? Who cares? Where's the next available hangar party?

So Klaxons become the faces of the hear-and-now. Even the Arctic Monkeys, foreigners du jour this time last year, seem irrelevant with their merely classic four-piece guitar-rock. Klaxons are both the past and the future. That's an awfully weighty burden to carry considering their debut is only just now coming out here. The expectation is that, this time next year, we will be remembering Klaxons with a shrug, a laugh or a frown and consternation... because we won't be able to remember anything except those air-raid sirens in "Atlantis to Interzone." Ah, is that who that was? I guess that's why they named themselves after the Greek verb of "to shriek."

The thing about Myths of the Near Future, ironically enough, is that for all its tricky electronics and sizzling samples, it too is but a mere guitar record. This is the great paradox that might make them as enduring as, well, Kicks Like a Mule. Somebody will remember them. Chances are, they're going to be remembered less for the surprisingly good album that this is and more for a movement that may or may not exist.

Which brings in another aspect to this story: NME. Though they get lambasted practically daily by professional and amateur critics alike for making up scenes, christening nobodies as the Next Bit Things, playing the home-favoritism card, and stirring up trouble, there are two things naysayers don't like talking about: They have to make a weekly magazine that will sell (which a lot of people are struggling with), and occasionally they get it right. They might've made up New Rave, they might be quick to christen Klaxons as Christ v.2007, they might be Union Jacking off... But the reality is, they may actually have gotten it right. Klaxons are good, and not just for their music.

My mother once completed "Gravity's Rainbow." I know five people who not only read it but understood it, her included. Precious few people have attempted to even cite Pynchon in song (Laurie Anderson, Pat Benatar... They're out there), but for these guys to do it seems almost offensive and still remains totally logical: They're dropping Burroughs references in a postmodern context. They have deconstructed post-punk, Brit-pop and, yes, rave. They rebuilt it in their own image. You think this is just music for the kids, and it sure sounds like that on "Atlantis to Interzone" or "Magick"... But "Two Receivers" fades in and is comparatively mellow. Clearly they think album and not just song. "It's Not Over Yet" is a pop song, as straightforward as anything on the radio here in the US. And their amusing cover of Justin Timberlake's "My Love" shows they're informed equally by the pop charts as they are about tech-house or math-rock.

Ultimately, Klaxons aren't just presenting kids with music for a good time. They're presenting them with an idea of the potential for a subculture to evolve beyond its own self-imposed parameters. Is it genius? Maybe not. For now though (and maybe only for now), Klaxons are looking like the one New Rave group that may outlast the movement it incidentally started. Myths of the Near Future is their argument.













LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous (DFA / Capitol 2007)

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver / DFA/Capitol

On the flipside of the Here-And-Now is the Always-And-Forever. For dance music, the latter has always been something of a struggle: At some point, the hangar has to empty out, the dawn has to show itself, the turntables have to take a hiatus for repairs so we can catch our collective breath. James Murphy was already ahead of us when he set sail with the eponymous Losing My Edge 12". We know now what that did not just for the DFA or dance but for New York City and the very concept of "rock" itself. Genre-bending, genre-bleeding, genre-breaking: LCD Soundsystem was the active musical laboratory that captured hearts and minds throughout 2003 and on into '04. By the time of LCD's self-titled debut, kids were asking how he could top his singles.

As we now know, he didn't. Murphy avoided the question totally by thinking in terms of The Album, long expected to be dead by the end of this decade. Halfway through the Noughties and with over 60,000 copies sold, it's hard to argue The Album is obsolete. There were flaws in LCD Soundsystem, of course. Some of those songs needed to be trimmed. Some needed to be cut totally. Some just weren't "funny." How do you fight that? Sometimes, Siouxsie & the Banshees or Harry Nilsson covers just aren't enough. Sometimes you just have to go out there and fight it with something better. For a lot of people, 45:33 was it. But for the rest of us, Sound of Silver will have to suffice.

The brilliant thing about LCD Soundsystem is that it's become a rolling musical experiment in every possible way, bigger than mere songs: From the viral marketing campaign to go #2 on the charts to Murphy's off-kilter blog over at The Guardian... This is a band a ton of people want to love even though they're on a major and the RIAA comes after pretty much anyone who posts an mp3 of an album that leaked in early December. Funny how that works, isn't it? We grovel at the feet of a guy whose music is relatively airtight. Just check The Hype Machine... Then get innocuous while you can. Chances are it'll be down by the end of the weekend even with an impending release.

I don't mean to jinx myself, but you get the point: LCD Soundsystem is a big deal. They've done a lot for rock, but they've done more for dance music by giving it a sense of timelessness rather than timeliness. Sound of Silver is no different. This is a better album than the debut. "Get Innocuous" is both an incredible opener and a legitimate jab at dance itself: Critiquing the very nature of the extended mix, then running for over seven minutes. It's exactly what you want, even if the processed vocals add an Eno-ish element that had been reserved for the finale on the first album. Can't wait for the 12".

"Time to Get Away" and "North American Scum" are more song than dance, but already you've gotten the idea: Murphy isn't interested in just being clever. He wants you to dance, he wants you to think, he wants you to listen, he wants you to cross your arms and proclaim that you're above it all. Either way, you look like an idiot. If the press gets a kick out of pointing out how the joke's on Murphy as much as the listener, imagine what fun James must have creating this stuff and watching all of us imbeciles adore him for it. The joke is the best in music.

LCD Soundsystem - New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

And it comes out best in "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down." This is the other LCD Soundsystem that gets all the critical acclaim but doesn't rear its head quite as often as the dancefloor anthems of its alter-ego. A touching display with lyrics as high up in the mix as ever before and a piano Billy Joel wished he'd been dumb enough to think of, Murphy laments the passing of his city... Then shrugs it off by saying it's "the one pool I'd happily drown." Coy. Cue fade-out. Murphy once said that he likes making music he feels confident putting on the shelf next to his favorites (Public Image Ltd., Can, Talking Heads, cf. "Losing My Edge"). A lot of people were worried that this whole dancepunk/punk-funk/disco-rock thing would be out by the end of '05. They reckoned that was the albatross... But the great don't settle.

Maybe those days are over. If they are, Sound of Silver both does and doesn't pay any mind. It brings the party and cleans up the mess when it's over. For that I will happily buy two copies on Tuesday to expose the flaws of the industry, why not? Seems like just as good a joke as dressing in tracksuits and snapping glowsticks to "Four Horsemen of 2012." But the construction, the arc of these two albums is both subtle and brilliant. While we busy ourselves with Bpitch Control and Ed Banger, while we imagine the Simian Mobile Disco LP or dream up how Interpol will make the same set of songs three times, Klaxons and LCD Soundsystem are here now. And for two superlative albums, you won't know what to think about modern music. The stuff of legends or the stuff of passing fads? Ask me in two decades when no one will care about our glory days and the party is over. Whatever that means.