After years of pounding at the backstage door, it’s pretty much official: dance music is the new punk rock. CBGBs is no more, and guitars are swiftly being eclipsed by laptops, but the DIY aesthetic is alive and well. So it’s only fitting that the future of American dance music should emerge in the form of two New England Art Institute grads, Josh Shifrin and Paul Mihailoff, who left behind their punk rock and hip-hop pasts to form Plus Move, an electronic act obsessed with the future. And for good reason - they’ve been there.
Check out the song BOSS from 2099
“It’s kind of weird how we got into this,” Mihailoff admits, recalling a time back in Boston before they learned the art of time travel. Both he and Shifrin were playing in rock bands, with their only common thread was a shared interest in Radiohead. “I was actually into producing hip-hop beats when we first met, and I threw Daft Punk in the same category as the bland, repetitive, four-on-the-floor stuff that I couldn’t get into. But once I understood the energy behind it, I started listening to all the other French producers.”
Plus Move got everyone’s attention when they leaked their bootleg remix of Justice’s funk-squelch anthem “D.A.N.C.E” to some of their favorite music blogs back in the summer of 2007. “We first heard the song as a radio rip,” Shifrin recalls. “It wasn’t even the full song or the final version, but we fell in love with it and immediately chopped the shit out of the track to get rid of the radio noise, re-worked it completely and sent it back out to every blog that we liked. Before we knew it, we were getting emails from people all over the world.”
One of those emails got their attention more than the other messages from crazed fans. It was an anonymous invitation to a meeting in a basement underneath M.I.T., just minutes from the Plus Move studio. Shifrin and Mihailoff are reluctant to reveal specifics, but the story goes that they were introduced to someone they refer to cryptically as “Sphinx.” When asked if “Sphinx” is the mythical being described in Egyptian and Greek mythology, Plus Move boldly puts forth that Sphinx “has taken many different forms throughout time.”
The next part of the story may be even less credible, yet the recordings that make up the “2099” EP are presented for your consideration. Plus Move claim to have traveled through time with Sphinx to the year 2099, where together they defeated the evil ruler BOSS. In the ensuing days spent in 2099, Plus Move and Sphinx recorded these songs and brought them back to the present day as documented proof of their travels.
The cool heads at Expansion Team Records, for whom the duo had previously remixed a Ready Fire Aim track, immediately took notice of the change in Shifrin and Mihailoff’s disposition. The “2099” recordings shifted and morphed with more unpredictable dynamics than a multi-car pileup, equal parts apocalypse and apotheosis in the mix. Label boss and fellow futurist Alex Moulton lent his ear to the music, helping co-produce the songs to make them understandable to early-21st century ears.
Plus Move recently relocated to Austin, Texas, a move necessitated by the need for physical space to assemble their next secret project. The duo are reportedly building a structure they believe is a time machine that allows for hundreds (if not thousands) of fans to join them on their subsequent journeys to the future. How’s that for DIY?
Digital Release Date: out now
If you haven’t check out Justice yet then you should really get on it. If you like Daft Punk you’ll love Justice. In this video for “Stress” they go for a Parisian youth gang, Grand Theft Auto Europe feel, and the results are frighteningly realistic and somewhat shocking… In a good way. Plus they have cool “Justice themed” jackets, check it out:
Brooklyn based electro-rock act unplug and cover Daft Punk? Not much more needs to be said, but this ones pretty easy on the ears. Great cover, check it out:
Mobius Band (covering Daft Punk) - “Digital Love”
Listen to more at:
http://www.myspace.com/mobiusband
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Nope, turns out its just another veiled producer creating French House music… The blogosphere was abuzz yesterday when a track named “Love” was credited to Thomas Bangalter, one half of the majestic Daft Punk, but it was outed as a track by a character named Louis La Roche.
Check the tune out HERE at Louis La Roche’s MySpace page
and read more on the story at Idolator.com
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I managed to catch the Daft Punk performance that came through Montreal and it was pretty much the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. For their Coney Island show they asked fans to bring video recording equipment and then they’d edit it together into a fan perspective, live video. The song they chose was “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (with Around the World)”, watch the result at Stereogum.com and realize how insane you were to miss one of these shows.
As much as you’d like to think that the Daft Punk dudes are actual robots… there are 2 dudes in those suits. PitchForkMedia.com was lucky enough to sit down with Thomas Bangalter and ask a few burning questions that I’m sure many people have been wondering:
Pitchfork: For a while, there were rumors that you were going to break up, and instead you put together this massive touring extravaganza. What, if any, effect did that have on your decision to do a tour on such a huge scale?
Thomas Bangalter: We like the idea that the things we do seem to come out of nowhere. It’s probably because we do not feel it is appropriate to speak about our next projects in general that all sort of rumors are consequently generated. The show, like everything we have done and still do, is just one more experiment. It is the show itself that defined the scale of the tour.
Pitchfork: Can you talk a bit about your live setup? What are you guys actually doing up there? How much room is there for improvisation?
TB: Our setup is very different than the live shows we were doing in 1997. Instead of many of the old drum machines, synths, and sequencers we were using at the time, we created similar virtual kits in a software-based environment, controlling the music computers that are offstage via ethernet remote controls inside our pyramid, with moog synthesizers alongside. We have always been thinking about different ways to perform electronic music, i.e. music made with machines. In the end, we really consider ourselves operators of the system that we built for this show.
The show, which is as much a musical experience than a visual experience, is very musical experience than a visual experience, is very structured and precise, following a strict setlist. It uses in a way an abstract narration. There is indeed a level of improvisation where we can distort and shuffle the music patterns, samples, and loops in each phase of the show within fixed cue points, but at the same time there is a constant result that we are trying to achieve each night while performing and operating our system– quite similar in spirit to a broadway show for example: If you go see a musical two nights in a row, the performances are different yet similar.
Pitchfork: Tell me a litle bit about the multimedia elements. Who came up with the pyramid, the light show, the LED costumes, the light piping on the helmets? How much input did you guys have into that whole endeavour, and how long did it take to develop?
TB: We personally worked as much on the music as on the different multimedia elements. We designed the general concept with our long time friend and creative partner Cedric Hervet and also Paul Hahn who runs our production company Daft Arts based in L.A.
We were joined by Martin Phillips, who became our light designer. More and more people joined our crew as the production started. Production began early 2006 for the first show in coachella 2006, then the show was upgraded in 2007.
Pitchfork: Speaking of the visuals, why isn’t there a DVD of this tour? Do you ever look up yourself on YouTube just to watch audience members go nuts?
TB: We are really excited by the idea that so many different people captured a video of their experience of the show in their own way. The thousands of clips on internet are better to us than any DVD that could have been released.
Pitchfork: Have you ever toyed with the idea of sending someone else up on stage in costume?
TB: Of course not. Who would want to trade such a spot?
Pitchfork: What’s your opinion of DJs like Justice, who are obviously hugely influenced by you? Do you feel any sense of friendly competition with them?
TB: Justice are talented. They make good tracks and have fun doing it. We come from a generation that wanted to make electronic music accepted, at a time [when] it was not. The place of electronic music, culturally and socially, is today completely different– it is now everywhere, and it has been totally accepted. Consequently, there is now a younger generation that is more focused on making great electronic music, good parties, and having fun, where there is not any more so much need for cultural and ideological statements in electronic music itself. We’re genuinely happy if some musicians of this younger generation are influenced by our music, as we were ourselves influenced 10 years ago by older musicians.
Pitchfork: It seems like the general response to Human After All was that it was a bit of a disappointment compared to the first two albums. Were you surprised that people felt that way? Was it vindicating to put those newer tracks together with older ones and have them work so well in the live environment?
TB: Human After All was the music we wanted to make at the time we did it. We have always strongly felt there was a logical connection between our three albums, and it ’s great to see that people seem to realize that when they listen now to the live show.
Pitchfork: How did “Stronger” come about? Did Kanye West get in touch with you personally? Did you have any reservations about letting him use it?
TB: [Ed Banger owner and Daft Punk manager] Pedro Winter received a sample request from Kanye’s management a few months ago. We liked the track so we agreed. We met Kanye later in Lollapalooza.
Pitchfork: Hip-hop seems suddenly fascinated with your music: Would you be at all interested in producing for rappers?
TB: Why not? Hip-hop has always been exciting and interesting to us.
Pitchfork: Will there be another Daft Punk album? If you’ve started to work on it, what does it sound like so far?
TB: It’s always too early to tell how it will sound.
Pitchfork: What were the last five records you put on because you wanted to dance?
TB: Kavinsky: “Testarossa Autodrive”
Hüsker Dü: “New Day Rising”
Kanye West: “Flashing Lights”
Ratatat: “Lex”
Sebastien Tellier: “Sexual Sportswear (SebastiAn remix)”
will.i.am’s remix of “I Got It From My Mama” has leaked, and I’ve got it here for you to see! His use of Daft Punk’s “Around the World” is really hot.
See it here
PLAY
