New from the DFA...

So dfa are increasingly becoming a sort of retro house label, no? Is that OK?

Yes.

Good. Thanks for putting me straight.

I realise I was a bit unfair about the Shocking Pinks single, as it's great.

I've actually only got the two different Glimmers mixes, not the original, and the longer one in particular is fab - beneath the mad insistent cowbells it's full of murky, dirty bass and the guy intoning "Take the medicine, that's all you know" over and over. Nice.

So dfa are increasingly becoming a sort of retro house label, no? Is that OK?

as opposed to a retro postpunk/disco label?

I was just asking. I suppose the source material was more distant in time and (to me) more obscure.

The Fabric mix might be my favorite album of the year.

i love the fact that the new cd single snubbed the rules re charts and was basically a mini remix album of Sound Of Silver.

is it possible to get the Fabric Mix in the US? I'm not seeing it on iTunes.

I'm lost without a certain torrent site...

it's not out yet ... villalobos just came out in the US about a week ago, give it another month.

fabric are utter masters of prerelease hype.

i think it comes out 11/13

if you subscribe to the fabric series, you get them way before (4-6 weeks) the american shops do.

is it possible to get the Fabric Mix in the US?

obviously not the US, but worth a shot.
http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/285817-01.htm

what are the US shipping terms for fabric?

£2 shipping and £6 per mix (roughly $16.50 as of today)

ok Punkin' Machine's "I Need You Tonight" on the Fabric mix is fucking killing me eight ways to Saturn. I really didn't want to love this mix so much, fought against it and everything, but no, this thing can have its way with me for as long as it likes

i subscribe and i got it two days ago, even with the shitty canadian postal service

yes that punkin machine track!!! i had heard the suzy q version before on a rub n tug mix (last track on this) but not this version.

the whole mix is sorta endearingly rough round the edges, you can tell they're straining to make it work at points but it all comes off. that chic > was not was > GQ > mudd section is so so good.

you sure the Suzy Q and Punkin Machine versions aren't identical?

you know, they may well be!

I only have the 12" credited to Punkin Machine but was under the impression it's just the same song. Still don't know for sure!

i too love the Hercules b side "roar"

The b-side to the new Shit Robot is kinda eh but HOLY FUCKING FUCK FUCK @ the a-side.

also the Holy Ghost! 12" is a pretty damn great deal - the kickass original version and dub, and then the Blackjoy remix on the flip which could pass for the best Escort track since their mix of "It's All True".

I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH ALL OF THIS!

still waiting for the follow-up to "casual friday"

Yeah they have gone kind of release crazy this fall, huh? I haven't gotten around to any of the DFAbroad stuff and most of these new 12"s are on kind of a "which should I try to digest first" level so I'm just ignoring it all at the moment.

xpost.

they are pretty much all good. dive in, dudes!

apparently the casual friday follow up is never coming.

RIP formal saturday

xpost

WORST POSSIBLE NEWS

I like "Hold On" very much.

I grabbed "Hold On" (excellent!) from Fluxblog, then later that day read an interview with Galkin where he talks about how much their single sales have nosedived since the advent of MP3 blogs (he says early 12"s sold 15,000-20,000 copies, and now they generally do about 2,000-3,000 of each one, which he blames on blogs). Intersting...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/11/louis_pattison_thurs_am_pic.html

that DFA article re blogs

I think Galkin is being slightly disingenuous if he thinks mp3 blogs are why say, the Shocking Pinks, are selling less than HoJL (which I'll bet sold a LOT more than 20,000 12"s anyway, if you count the Output UK version and so on).

It would be more interesting to see what Pixeltan or whatever sold.

also: not everyone buys vinyl, also their 12"s are fucking expensive

(which is why i haven't bought any of them, nothing to do with mp3 blogs)

umm. could it not just be a simple case of Shocking Pinks/Prinzhorn aint exactly crowd pleasers.

that DFA article re blogs

I actually read a different version in Plan B, but he's basically saying the same thing.

w/o the input of mp3 blogs how many people are realistically going to have heard these bands?

I'm never able to find these 12"s in shops around here, and with very shoddy mail delivery (missing pacakges, packages beat to shit) I don't feel very good about getting vinyl shipped to me. I bought the recent Shit Robot 12" on iTunes since they had it DRM free, I wish more of their stuff was that way.

also their 12"s are fucking expensive

I still buy the 12s. they're actually cheap in the States compared to a lot of the Euro shit I like. I don't feel like I have to get every single one like I used to though.

there's probably some truth to the blog criticism but I wonder if there's a corresponding rise in legit digital sales. some of their core audience (DJs) seem less interested in vinyl in general (see "do DJs still collect vinyl" thread) and probably feel like if they wait for something to come out in stores they missed the boat.

w/o the input of mp3 blogs how many people are realistically going to have heard these bands?

that don't make it ok to give it away.

"RIP formal saturday"

and repentance sunday as well

well, maybe there will be a follow-up to "relevee"? or maybe the dfa can remix all of the days of mars like they did with "rise".

"still going theme" reminds me of big country.

that don't make it ok to give it away.

maybe not but exposure's surely a good thing, and it's hardly gonna sell loads without it

I think there were ways to get exposure and sell music before music blogs. I obviously don't know what those methods were, but it worked for some people. The bloggers do have other choices. They can ask the label if they can share the song. They can provide a link to the streaming version the label has offered. They can post a lower bit-rate or edited selection. But they almost never do any of these things.

they can ask the label if they can share the song.

some of us nearly always do (for the new stuff as opposed to old OOP stuff), well maybe not the label, but the artist involved.

I heard "Hold On" on a Tim Sweeney mix like in January and I couldn't find any information on it... great song, glad it's finally been released.

some of us think you should ask permission to post OOP stuff too, but that's a discussion I'm sure we've had on other threads! Generally I find posting OOP stuff a bit more understandable. What's really brutal is the posting of complete brand new CDs.

What's tough for labels releasing singles is they don't benefit the same way from blog promotion. When I've released CDs, we've posted a few tracks, sent them to blogs, even on occasion offered unreleased exclusive material, because in the end you hope people will like the song well enough to buy the whole CD. But when you post 1 or both sides of a 12" single...that's it, you're giving it all away.

I really wish the DFA (well all labels which derive a significant portion of their income from singles, but due to selfish interest I especially mean the DFA) would release compilations a lot more frequently - that way MP3 blogs have a complete package to hype instead of just giving the whole game away out of laziness or lack of promotiona acumen (which I freely admit I've done in the past and will most assuredly do in the future).

not to mention Compilation #2 is straight-up one of my very favorite releases of this decade and I would sell limbs for a similarly-minded sequel. Lord knows their releases over the last few months certainly haven't done much to extinguish that fire.

But when you post 1 or both sides of a 12" single...that's it, you're giving it all away.

yeah hearing that take on things from labels I think are great (mainly Environ and DFA) caused me to stop posting new stuff except in mixes.
older stuff I think is more of a grey area.

(not to open this whole can of worms again.)