Hercules and Love Affair

I guess it's the fact that it is Antony who's singing over the top, which is what sets this apart, Ronan.

"Hercules Theme" is the shit

tbh i don't get very much 'punk' from "Blind" at all ...? i guess unless you mean how they generally master/engineer the bass+drums on DFA records in gen.

im not the one to defend that tho, i much prefer the knuckles mix

Ha, why do you find Kelley Polar boring, deej?

i dunno, after reading that thread i expected to like it! even Vahid who's normally overly discerning about shit like that couched his crit of the first one in "i really like it but..." He sounded like me talking about Dilla's "Donuts." And when Andy K likes "boring" music I'm usually w/ it too (lol grown folx R&B) but this was just really bland

I think it just struck me as functionally useless, emotionally one-dimensional - vocals are pretty plain and too restrained, production unexciting. i dunno just real hard to get excited about. I think w/ music like this i prefer it to be unabashedly pop like phoenix or whatever, and this was repetitive/hypnotic like track-y dance music but w/out the actual rhythmic drive to keep it grounded. too airy and ethereal, not enough physicality

Are you talking about the first album or the second?

both really

I like the first one better, but in either case, it definitely hits a lot of my pleasure centers: vocal harmonies and strings in the context of rhythmic, synth-based dance music is pretty much unbeatable for me.

yeah not a huge amount of punk I guess, I suppose I mean nu-disco then, disco that sounds post-dfa or post-lindstrom.

I was at a party at the weekend and it dawned on me when some guys played 3 or 4 hours of that stuff how fucking BORING it is.

I've seen Prins Thomas or Jonnie from Optimo play amazing sets of slow motion stuff, and it's quite eclectic and weird, but an entire set of nu-disco just sounds like a warmup DJ to me.

And that's what I get from "Blind" too, just kind of a weak song/track, with neither of the force of either.

I haven't actually thought "Oh I don't like this" in any meaningful way about anything in ages either, so apologies to rain on the party. Highly possible it's just me and my listening habits.

i feel you ronan.

i dont think yr alone in getting a kind of trip hop vibe from a lot of that stuff

yeah for definite, it's definitely some kind of post-internet music version of chillout or triphop...just kind of like "party music" too but in the worst possible way.

I don't know if Hercules and Love Affair is more interesting than that overall, I think I was hoping for something kind of emotionally affecting like old Chicago house and it doesn't really grab me in that way.

If i were you i'd check out the other tracks before passing judgement, def - this record has range. there are some tracks im tossing on initial judgement but its got some joints

Yeah I will do for sure. When is it actually out?

march 10 I think

what is the tracklist everyone's looking at btw? i got some version w/ 10 tracks...

i've got one w/ 10 too

i think it's the real one

so no classique

i thought classique was a separate release

1. Time Will
2. Hercules' Theme
3. You Belong
4. Athene
5. Blind
6. Iris
7. Easy
8. This Is My Love
9. Raise Me Up
10. True False, Fake Real

an entire set of nu-disco just sounds like a warmup DJ to me.

so true!

but "blind" when played in a club (and preferably the "club mix") just sounds like it has come from outer space. the vocal makes me feel how i imagine it would be to be on opium. so warm inside!

the knuckles mix to me sounds like BAD funky / handbag house. hated that sound then, hate it now. mr. knuckles can do so much better.

A couple tracks aside (inc. the Hercules Club Mix of Blind), the album sounds (from a production standpoint, at least) like a slightly "edgier" version of a Naked Music release.

Okay I am listening to the Hercules Club Mix now, it seems a lot more interesting and not as horrible and middy as the original mix, I can imagine enjoying it in a club since there's actually some space in there.

that original mix is wretched tho, it sounds like the Scissor Sisters.

ronan do you mean the original "blind" or the frankie knuckles mix? i find the original sort of boring--one of the weaker on the album i think--but the fk remix is way is lush and pretty without losing any sharpness or bounce; its totally danceable and interesting and perfect for antony

xpost haha ok

jaymc's tracklist is the same thing I've got

hehe, yep! I really can't believe how hackneyed the music in the original is.

now liveblog 3: the frankie knuckles mix

after 10 seconds of this I've decided a cup of tea would be more pleasing.

Listening to the whole album after a week of living (and liking a lot) with "Blind," it sounds ok to pretty good. I wish Frankie Knuckles had done the whole thing.

sometimes i wonder if you like big dumb hooks, ronan. it's really okay if you don't, but to call 'em hackneyed makes me say duh! really loudly at computer screen.

I love them! But I don't see the hooks in the original really...the music sounds like every discopunk/nu-disco trick of the last few years just slapped up.

Sounds more like straight-up disco tropes to these ears...

I think (maybe with some time, to echo arguments made elsewhere on ilm these days) that knuckles remix might stand out as one of the better things to come out of H&LA. in context, it's proper garage, done like no other nowadays. it's lush, the production is both restrained and faultless. and I agree that tune is impossibly catchy!

really liked the extended "athene", "roar" from the single was all right, as for the album I find it too contrivedly assembled but this is how I feel about half of everything, so. there are a hundred reasons to enjoy AND be annoyed by those songs, it's not happening as an indistinct and carefree experience for me at all, especially when it gets rightfully cerebral, away from the dancefloor. the last track is like a lost bumblebee record though right? that one's a keeper.

This really is fantastic, except for "True False, Fake Real" - I could easily live without that. Just too many cartoony sound effects for me.

-- jon /via/ chi 2.0

wtf, my evil twin

but "blind" when played in a club (and preferably the "club mix") just sounds like it has come from outer space. the vocal makes me feel how i imagine it would be to be on opium. so warm inside!

put so much better than I could have phrased it

I heard it out on sat. night (at that joakim/DFA thing I mentioned above), sounded great

dunno if opium makes you warm but it sure makes you horizontal.

Count me in with the 'not feeling it' camp - I liked the Frankie Knuckles track, really liked Blind but the rest of it was just so DULL. I dunno, it seems a bit late in the day for this sort of tasteful, earnest disco revivalism.

It also helped me crystallise a problem I've had with Italians Do It Better (which I really like a lot of). It seems a slightly blokey, nerdy version of italo, without the sense of silliness or vulgarity, and both of those are largely absent in the Hercules & Love Affair record as well. Like, I'm grateful to the crate-diggers who have kept this stuff alive and appreciated but I don't necessarily want all the fun bits, that might be seen as embarrasing, filed off as well.

"Hercules Theme" seems pretty playful and silly to me

yeah i don't find this particularly duller or staler sounding than anything else current, but i haven't heard the full album. think it's interesting that some like H&LA but not KP and some are the opposite - don't really understand either because I like both and tho they don't really sound alike they're fulfilling the same purposes for me. i guess they both often aim for pleasantness rather than intensity, dance-wise, which might put some off.

i think the new kelley polar is a grower. i like how it is sequenced.

so how close is the frankie knuckles remix to "the whistle song"? cuz that's smoooth.

seems like the general opinion here is quite divided. the H&LA i have heard definitely belongs on DFA cuz it has one foot each in the dance and rock camps. it's like there isn't enough of either though.

seems like it would work well in a mix a la fabriclive 36 though.

The club mix of Blind is tremendous, really brings the best out of Antony's vocals, like he's booming out over this huge sound system. Love it.

otm, the club mix brings much drama via the reverb knob. Excellent.

So far my First Quarter 2008 mix is just the whole Hercules and Love Affair record.

-- kenan, Friday, February 15, 2008 11:30 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

artwork for blind at dfa's myspace page. too lazy to upload it here.

Upload?

http://www.dfarecords.com/myspace/hercules/blind.jpg

errr ... post, i mean?

Frankie Knuckles remix here.

I love songs with this kind of structure, where everything is building up in the first few minutes to that "I feel blind" line.