The Chemical Brothers "We Are The Night"

Artist: The Chemical Brothers
Album: We Are The Night
Label: Virgin
Release date: 2 July 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Big Beat/Electro/Tech House

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Tracklisting:
01. No Path To Follow
02. We Are The Night
03. All Rights Reversed [Feat. The Klaxons]
04. Saturate
05. Do It Again [Feat. Ali Love]
06. Das Spiegel
07. The Salmon Dance [Feat. Fatlip]
08. Burst Generator
09. A Modern Midnight Conversation
10. Battle Scars [Feat. Willy Mason]
11. Harpoons
12. The Pills Won’t Help You Now [Feat. Midlake]
Total running time: 59' 50"

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[The Chemical Brothers - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

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[The Chemical Brothers - Do It Again - Video Clip]

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[The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar - Live @ Glastonbury 2007]

"Approaching their sixth album, the Chemical Brothers may have felt like James Murphy did on LCD Soundsystem's Losing My Edge - that "the kids" are coming up from behind. With young pups Justice and Digitalism currently white-hot in dance circles, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have a lot to prove if they are to live up to what their album title claims. They do so brilliantly on Do It Again, a subterranean romp with east-London hipster Ali Love questioning his hedonistic pursuits; and the Klaxons hint that there will be life after rave as the new Blur on All Rights Reversed. On an album already steeped in psychedelia, it seems a given that The Pills Won't Help You Now will be about a bad batch of ecstasy; this Midlake collaboration is emotionally taut and heartfelt. With their reputations at stake, the Chems have conjured their most brilliant work since 1999's Surrender. Losing their edge? Not a bit of it." [source]

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Hexstatic "When Robots Go Bad"

Artist: Hexstatic
Album: When Robots Go Bad
Label: Ninja Tune
Release date: 2 July 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Electro/Big Beat/Funk/Hip Hop/Tech House

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Tracklisting:
01. Red Laser Beam
02. Roll Over [Feat. Sabirajade]
03. Tokyo Traffic
04. Freak Me [Feat. B+]
05. Prom Night Party [Hexstatic Remix]
06. TLC
07. Move On [Feat. Profisee & Ema J]
08. A Different Place [Feat. B+]
09. Subway [Feat. Profisee]
10. Lab Rat Interlude
11. Newton's Cradle
12. Newaves
13. Bust
Total running time: 50' 07"

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[Hexstatic - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

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[Hexstatic - Roll Over - Video Clip]

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[Hexstatic - Pulse (Dance Mix) - Video Clip]

"The dynamic duo, Hexstatic, return to the fray with "When Robots Go Bad," their finest album yet. Taking their electro obsession to greater heights than ever before, "WRGB" finds Robin Brunson and Stuart Warren-Hill mashing up sounds and influences in search of the ultimate machine groove.

From first track "Red Laser Beam" they lay out their wares - crunching guitar samples, huge drum box beats and enough synths to drown a nation beneath a sea of (sine) waves. It's such a euphoric opening that it's hard to imagine how they can keep the pressure up. First single "Roll Over" quickly lays any fears to rest. Featuring new vocal find Sabirajade, this is a swinging groove of heavily-layered keyboards and soulful, sultry vocals. "Tokyo Traffic" takes the tempo up again for an acidic, glitchy, serialist pop-locker of a tune that just about makes sense of the term "future-retro". "Freak Me" features B+, a female MC from Oz, who effortlessly rides a more minimalist, sexy, funky riff. Continuing the sexy theme, "Prom Night Party" is a complete re-work of a classic 'lost' track from Mike Ladd's "Majesticons" project. Electronic ode to love "TLC" gives the boys an opportunity to take the tempo right down, whereas "Move On" (featuring Edinburgh MC Profisee) starts to drive us forward again. B+ returns on "A Different Place", a floating electronic groove that shows she can do much more than rap. "Subway" is another tune for a new generation of breakers, Profisee offering a paen to underground music inspired by the forced fears of a nation. From "Lab Rat" onward the vocoder takes over - "Newton's Cradle," "Newaves" and the superb "Bust" offering an object lesson in the contrasting ways in which synths and drum boxes can be used to create superb, funny, funky, driving dance music." [source]

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Justice "Cross"

Artist: Justice
Album: Cross
Label: Because
Release date: 11 June 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Tech House

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Tracklisting:
01. Genesis
02. Let There Be Light
03. D.A.N.C.E
04. Newjack
05. Phantom
06. Phantom Pt II
07. Valentine
08. Tthhee Ppaarrttyy
09. Dvno
10. Stress
11. Waters of Nazareth
12. One Minute to Midnight
Total running time: 48' 08"

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[Justice - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

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[Justice - D.A.N.C.E - Video Clip]

"Justice are Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay, two young Parisian producers who carved out their own space on the crowded dancefloor a couple of years back with their remix of Simian’s ‘‘Never Be Alone’’. Standing out amongst the faceless ranks for bedroom dance producers is not an easy task, yet Justice made it appear so. Their debut single proper, the mighty ‘‘Waters Of Nazareth’’, was the sort of pummelling document that suggested this band had arrived fully formed, with their huge-sounding, muscular beats, rough electronics and bass turned up to the point of distortion.

Actually, Justice’s debut album suggests this Gallic twosome throw their net somewhat wider. Yes, the opening ‘‘Genesis’’ is a massive, sludgy techno throb that feels not so much expertly crafted as messily stapled together out of twitching blocks of sound. But almost from the get-go, it’s like Justice are eager to branch out their signature sound into new territories. ‘‘Let There Be Light’’ seems to take its sad melody from an aged busker’s melancholy accordion lament. ‘‘D.A.N.C.E’’ hitches powerful beats to a funky chassis that suggests intimate knowledge of New York disco legends Chic – and tops it off with a Jackson 5-style chorus supplied by a crowd of English school children. And on ‘‘The Party’’, Justice’s Ed Banger labelmate, 20-year old Miami rapper Uffie turns up to front a perky pop number that privileges sunny good vibes over head-stoving beats.

Importantly, though, while there’s much here to suggest Justice are more than one-trick ponies, there’s also enough muscle to prove the pair haven’t forgotten what made them big in the clubs. Consequently, perhaps the most impressive track here is ‘‘Stress’’. A brutally heavy, super-dense concoction of air-raid sirens and whirling violins, it sounds like nothing less than the bathroom scene from Psycho set to beats. People have been calling Justice ‘the new Daft Punk’, but that’s only half the story. This big, bold record is the sound of leaders – not followers." [source]

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Matthew Dear "Asa Breed"

Artist: Matthew Dear
Album: Asa Breed
Label: Ghostly
Release date: 5 June 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Tech House/Electro Pop

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Tracklisting:
01. Fleece On Brain
02. Neighborhoods
03. Deserter
04. Shy
05. Elementary Lover
06. Don And Sherri
07. Will Gravity Win Tonight?
08. Pom Pom
09. Death To Feelers
10. Give Me More
11. Midnight Lovers
12. Good To Be Alive
13. Vine To Vine
Total running time: 44' 23"

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[Matthew Dear - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

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[Matthew Dear - Deserter - Promo Video]

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[Matthew Dear - Pom Pom - Promo Video]

""In a fantasy world—which probably won't happen—I'd like to take minimal techno and make pop out of it, the same way Depeche Mode and New Order did 15 to 20 years ago," Matthew Dear told me in a 2003 interview. Guess what? Dear's fantasy world has become reality.

The transition from techno producer to singing/lyric-writing techno producer is rarely attempted, never mind executed with competence. Sterling examples could be cited on one hand (um, can I get back to you?), which makes this Detroit minimal-techno artist's stabs at being a laptop-tapping song-and-dance man so refreshing. He established himself in the early '00s the way most underground-techno savants do: with instrumental cuts geared for dance-floor devastation. But on 2003's Leave Luck to Heaven and 2004's Backstroke, Dear included his own vocals (think Bill Callahan or Leonard Cohen—low, lugubrious, lecherous), and the results were club gold that also clicked in the bedroom.

Asa Breed finds the man furthering his songcraft within the genre, his flat, sometimes stilted voice complementing his low-slung, artfully spare techno. The disc's first single, "Deserter," is twinkling, vaporous electro pop that falls somewhere between Seefeel and the Postal Service, and "Death to Feelers" coheres around an ultra-cute, spangly synth motif that typifies the record's tension between escapist and earthy inclinations.

Throughout much of Asa Breed, Dear achieves a serendipitous balance between the uplifting and the eerie, the hummable and the hypnotic, the tuneful and the texturally adventurous. You can hear a refreshing strain of electronic pop—with occasional African-inflected rhythms and Jon Hassell–esque ambiance—struggling to be born here. It's a sly, seductive effort that could help Dear break out of the techno ghetto. (Not that there's anything wrong with techno ghettos.)" [source]

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Digitalism "Idealism"

Artist: Digitalism
Album: Idealism
Label: Kitsuné Music
Release date: 11 June 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Tech House/Electro/Electro Rock

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Tracklisting:
01. Magnets
02. Zdarlight
03. I Want I Want
04. Idealistic
05. Digitalism In Cairo
06. Departure From Cairo
07. Pogo
08. Moonlight
09. Anything New
10. The Pulse
11. Homezone
12. Apollo-Gize
13. Jupiter Approach
14. Jupiter Room
15. Echoes
Total running time: 53' 07"

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[Digitalism - Open MySpace Standalone Music Player]

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[Digitalism - Zdarlight - Video Clip]

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[Digitalism - Pogo - Video Clip]

"Hailing from Hamburg, Digitalism are an electronic dance duo who tap into their city's heritage of speed-fuelled rock'n'roll. Berlin may still be in thrall to minimal techno, but Digitalism pile on the ideas and and feed their synths through guitar pedals for maximum effect. Like the Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk before them, Jens Moelle and Ismail Tuefekci fuse rock with rave, and even cover the Cure's Fire in Cairo to prove the point. The synths squall on the brutish electro house of Idealistic; they ask about Anything New? to pre-empt detractors who may criticise their magpie tendencies (The Pulse is very Daft Punk); and, on Pogo, Moelle blankly declares, "We could get so wasted." No wonder indie kids are turning to acts like Digitalism for their thrills this year as one thing becomes clear: Idealism packs in more memorable riffs and tunes than the recent Bloc Party and Futureheads albums put together." [source]

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