Girl Crazy, the latest 7" from Greatest Hits, is set to drop soon via the Paris based Maman Records. Last month, we were given a gorgeous video for the b-side, "L Train Girl". But today, we finally have a video for the a-side, filled with plenty of poolside lounging, warped VHS overlays, and even a cameo from the L Train Girl herself. It's the diva-esque attitude of vocalist Zak Merring the that keeps the video as entertaining as this groovy jam. --Jheri Evans, Get Off The Coast
Get Girl Crazy from Maman Records. Greatest Hits are relocating to Paris in just a few days. Info on their NYC going away blow-out this evening here
[Photo by Weird Magic/Erez Avissar]
By Jenn Pelly
MP3: Greatest Hits: "Aleister Crowley Nightmare"
MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"
When I met up with the Brooklyn-via-LA mutant-funk duo Greatest Hits at Bushwick's Swallow Café last Tuesday, they were pretty easy to pick out of the crowd of laptop zoners. Zak Mering appeared in white jeans and enormous gas station sunglasses that made it difficult to tell what he actually looked like, his Ramones hairdo topped with a Sea World trucker hat. Tyler Thacker, who drums for Outer Limits Recordings sometimes and works as a portrait painter, donned black from head to toe, and knuckle tattoos: Masonic symbols from back when he was “into secret societies.”
Thacker and Mering’s threads were pretty fitting for a pair who have been churning out weirdo '80s synth-pop with hints of Italo-disco and cosmic funk since September 2010-- plus kitschy, tongue-in-cheek videos for songs like "Danse Pop," one of AZ’s best of last year, and the semi-controversial "L Train Girl." The tracks have put Greatest Hits all over the map, with 7 inches on labels like Brooklyn’s Olde English Spelling Bee and Tokyo’s Sixteen Tambourines, in addition to a forthcoming EP and LP for Maman Records of Paris, which they’ll call home starting June 15th. Neither Zak nor Tyler has previously visited Europe, and they liken the opportunity-- which includes a DJ residency at Le Motel and tour dates in places like London and Stockholm-- to a “fairytale.” Read on for Greatest Hits' origins, the story behind their name, and how anti-egoism has helped define what they do.
AZ: How did Greatest Hits start?
Tyler: We're from Los Angeles, but New York is where we became more of a band. In Los Angeles, the project was kind of anti-band. We started it as a platform for friends to anonymously submit material-- like stuff they thought was dead-- and for our own material. We'd "Frankenstein" it-- patch it together, polish it. We were both really into collage, Dadaism, Fluxus, and it was a way we could fight the stereotypes that we felt were inevitable when you start to play music. We didn't want it to be about ego or personality-- just music, and the archival mindset.
We got an offer from Olde English Spelling Bee, and it seemed like a great escape for Zak and me. Zak had already moved out to New York, and we were making music by sharing stuff through the Internet. When I moved out [last year], we decided to embrace the stereotype of "personalities." It was an opportunity to play into this stereotype of the band formula. We started writing music that was song-oriented to wrangle interest, and did a lot of video work.
The always-grinding duo of Zac Mering and Tyler Thacker return in their mutant freak-funk Greatest Hits guise with the appropriately kitschy vid for retro-futurist space soul hit "L Train Girl". Check out more of the beautiful miscreants' activity over at their Gunk TV HQ now and look for their new EP on Maman Records to hit soon. --Jack Shankly, Transparent
--Previously:
If you missed out on our MP3 post of Greatest Hits' "perfectly dead-pan electro-pop cover" of Harry Nilsson's "Ten Little Indians" because you were in Austin partying at Moby's Vegan BBQ, we forgive you. Just posted on Gunk TV Records, this video feautres footage of our lovable weirdos running amok in a museum spliced with massive explosions and apocalyptic devastation. --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones
MP3: Greatest Hits: "Ten Little Indians"
Stay tuned for more info on their forthcoming EP on French label Maman Records. In the meantime, get a load of this cheesed-out Raw Thrills (Zak Mering's side-project) and Maria Minerva collaboration:
The last time we heard from the Brooklyn mutant funk duo of Tyler Thacker and Zak Mering, they were crossing Italo Disco, old school hip hop, and feminine nasals in "Fun Girls," the b-side of their recent Freak Funk Boy 7" on Japan's Sixteen Tambourines; it made us laugh, it made us cry, and it kinda sounded like a song you might hear at a school dance in a John Hughes movie. Now, Greatest Hits is back on the floor with this perfectly dead-pan electro-pop cover of Harry Nilsson's "10 Little Indians," which comes ahead of their forthcoming EP on France's Maman Records. Zoom in if you're looking to shake it with an angry face, but still shake it. --Emilie Friedlander, Altered Zones
MP3: Greatest Hits: "10 Little Indians" (Harry Nilson Cover)"
Freak Funk Boy 7" is out now on Sixteen Tambourines. Greatest Hits' new EP is out soon on Maman Records
Last year, Olde English Spelling Bee's freak pop group Greatest Hits made an entrance with one our favorite songs of 2010, "Danse Pop." Since then, core members Tyler Thacker and Zak Mering have made themselves busy with other projects, Thacker moonlighting on skins (that's "drums" to you normies) for Sam Mehran's Outer Limits Recordings while Mering has been collaborating with Reuben Perelmen in their new band Vital Caress. But despite working overtime on other projects, the LA-via-Brooklyn duo recorded the Freak Funk Boy 7" for Japanese label Sixteen Tambourines. Its sexy b-side, "Fun Girls," sounds like a collage of '80s pop anthems, cross-polinated with Yello's "Oh Yeah" (made famous by Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Sabrina's italo disco hit "Boys Boys Boys", and, of course, Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones
The first 100 copies of the Freak Funk Boy 7" will be on red vinyl, pre-order yours from Sixteen Tambourines
--Previously
"It seems to me that there are three places you can stumble on [an idea for a song]. One, of course, is just that you have the fortune of an idea falling out of the sky fully formed. Another way is to sit at a keyboard, sit at an instrument and just fucking play around for hours and hours until you find something that kind of surprises you. It’s kind of like forcing that moment of inspiration to come. And the third way is by making a mistake. Like when you're in the middle of something and something gets put in the wrong place and it works perfectly."
-- John Maus in a 2008 interview with Zak Mering of Raw Thrills/Greatest Hits/Vital Caress/The Sweethearts, dug up from the Misshapes archives. We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves LP is out sooner than later on Upset the Rhythm
As 2010 draws to an close, Altered Zones brings you its collective year-end recap. Today, we list our favorite tracks of the year, with favorite albums due tomorrow. You can also check our list of the year's favorite music videos here, and don't forget to stay tuned through the holiday break for daily year-end mixtapes from our favorite artists.
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round" [4AD]
MP3: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round"
Balam Acab: "See Birds" [Tri Angle]
MP3: Balam Acab: "See Birds (Moon)"
In a year when many artists explored the meaning of image and identity in an age of faceless, over-abundant information, Balam Acab was initially lumped in with a wave of internet-dwelling producers who put more weight on artifice and presentation than substance. "See Birds" (and the ensuing EP) quickly dusted off any scene associations, and distinguished itself by actually owning a deep-rooted, intoxicating groove. From the triplet sway and watery reverb of the beat, to the the ghostly keyboard stabs, to the feedbacking, echoing sample that drives it, "See Birds" stood out by employing dub for it's sonic palette. Its use of vocal samples as an independent instrument rather than a reference, besides resulting in one of the years most bizarrely memorable "hooks," also strips it of any sense of irony, coming off rather like a heartfelt transmission from someone who, at the moment, would really rather be left in the shadows. --Noam Klar
Baby Jazz: "Michael Jordan" [self-released]
MP3: Baby Jazz: "Michael Jordan"
Baby Jazz's very first track, "Michael Jordan" is a 12-minute megamix collaboration between Golden Chow (Samuel Cooper of Sunglasses) and Teen Wolfe (Elgin Braden of Aux Arc). The track starts with a cacophony of angular, glitchy samples and reversed female harmonies. But after 80 seconds of rising and waning sonic patterns-- usually lost the moment they are grasped-- a beat finally organizes the chaos. From there on in, Baby Jazz skips from genre to genre and sample to sample like a mini pop culture role call of feel-good cues. We hear Chris Tucker screaming on the phone in Rush Hour, some rando screaming "NOBODY TURNS DOWN DRUGS", orgasms, and the intro to Dolly Parton's "Don't Drop Out". A hilarious and joyful musical rendition of my YouTube history. --Ric Leichtung
Blondes: "You Mean So Much to Me" [Merok]
MP3: Blondes: "You Mean So Much To Me"
Along with Teengirl Fantasy, Brooklyn electronic duo Blondes pretty much led the pack this year in re-envisioning the electronic music pioneers of the 20th century as music the rock kids could get down to. “You Mean So Much To Me,” the 9-minute opener of the duo's Touched EP, sounds like something Juan Atkins, E2-E4-era Manuel Göttsching, and Cluster might come up with if they convened for a late-night bump-and-grind on an autobahn ride to nowhere. Sam Haar and Zachary whisper synth ribbons and ethereal vocal samples into a delicate cymbal patter until they unleash the eternal techno 4/4. You can read it as an invitation to dance or permission to sink deeper into your beanbag; either way, it's proof that the millennial generation is making headway on a new, glitch-free strain of intelligent dance music. --Emilie Friedlander
Dead Gaze: "Take Me Home or I Die Alone" [Fire Talk]
MP3: Dead Gaze: "Take Me Home Or I Die Alone"
Cole Furlow, aka Dead Gaze, has been churning out one fantastic jam after another this year, but few tracks anywhere have struck me the way this one does. Through the first half, Furlow sounds like he's pleading with someone. More importantly, it sounds like he really means it. As the track progresses, the song gets brighter, leaving us to believe that someone must have finally taken him home. --Jheri Evans
Games: "Planet Party" [Hippos in Tanks]
It's been nine months since Games first arrived via "Planet Party." Needless to say, a lot has happened since, but the original genus for the duo's work still holds true. "Planet Party" is a diabolical excursion into midi-funk through the backdoors of our collective computer love, culling our internal memory for sampled bits and progenerated synth scapes. If there was ever a definitive sound of the past year, and counterpoint to "proto-chillwave," this was it. --Michael McGregor
Girl Unit: "Wut" [Night Slugs]
Counting local club producers such as Mosca, Kingdom, and label founders L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok among its ranks, the artist collective and upstart UK label Night Slugs had one of the most influential and consistent runs of releases this year, presenting an assimilated and innovative take on UK bass music. Girl Unit's "Wut" was easily its defining moment, in which the disparate elements of Southern rap, electro, grime and Baltimore club crystallized into one bold, forceful statement of intent. With its 7-minute sprawl and cyclical structure, the track oozes confident craft, coming in with a deceptively innocuous melody, before dropping a down-tempo bombshell of sub bass, air horns and pitch-shifted cries over a backing of buzzy, minor synth chords. --Noam Klar
Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop" [Olde English Spelling Bee]
MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"
Greatest Hits lives up to their name. "Danse Pop" is a brief two minutes of sheer danceable ecstasy. The song wastes no time kicking into place and immediately has you sliding every which way across the hardwood floor. Just don't slip when it's all greased with the sweat of everyone else unable to contain this groove. --Jheri Evans
Hotel Mexico: "Its Twinkle" [Second Royal]
You can't not love the "Love Gun"-inspired riff that opens "Its Twinkle" by Japan's Hotel Mexico. But there's more to this song than that killer, 4-second, descending shredder of a hook. Layer upon layer of guitar, bass, samples, and tambourines build on that riff, as other melodic parts come in and out of focus like the phase of two droning tones. A soft falsetto emerges from the busy instrumental tapestry, changing the sonic climate with an added sense of fragility. The initial reason-- the "hot riff"-- that made you fall in love with "It's Twinkle" fades into the background. --Ric Leichtung
James Blake: "CMYK" [R&S]
A close relative of the cut-and-paste R&B hook Deadboy worked into his devastating "U Cheated," James Blake’s ubiquitous "CMYK" begins in a far more delicate fashion, before overwhelming with a 2-step wave at the drop. Starting with the notes on a synth falling like water in a fiendish Morse pattern of drops, you can’t help but be lulled into a moment of stillness before the fuzzy wall of sound hits. "CMYK" is so restless that its vocal snippets slip in and out of time, rushing around the track like echoes of its own past and future pitched forward and back before the energy of the whole collapses in on itself. --d
Nice Face: "I Want Your Damage" [Sacred Bones]
MP3: Nice Face: "I Want Your Damage"
Nice Face, the madcap bedroom project of Brooklyn’s Ian Magee, has been channeling some serious hyperactivity since he started self-releasing his first cassettes and singles back in 2008. “I Want Your Damage,” our favorite of the pint-sized psych-rock stompers that made it onto his Immer Etwas LP this year, combines the fuzzed assault of Wooden Shjips, Purrling Hiss, et al. with the off-color zaniness of the B-52s. We're psyched to hear someone actually rock out over a drum machine, and can thank Nice Face for the kind reminder that precision and lo-fi values are by no means mutually exclusive. --Emilie Friedlander
oOoOO: "NoSummr4U" [Disaro]
Though this year saw music's darker retreats illuminated by the likes of Salem, Nike7UP and Stalker, San Franciscan producer oOoOO conjured the most poignant image of C21st cultural pollution. His self-titled EP, released in autumn by Tri Angle Records, is a beguiling, obsessive collection of possessed pop poltergeists that may be veiled in an unsettling gothic sparseness, but still burn effervescent at the core with pure melodic feeling. Non-EP track "Nosummr4U" is the best gateway into the sensual shadow-world of oOoOo, though. Its disembodied lullaby hooks and super-sleazy soft-metal guitar shredding is simultaneously alienating and enrapturing. --Jack Shankly
Pure Ecstasy: "Voices" [Acephale]
In the past year I've gone from seeing Pure Ecstasy in the back parking lot of an Ethiopian restaurant on a dismal, cold night in Austin to the background music on an advertisement with a pale, stumbling Kate Moss-type. Both fit them perfectly. The understated-ness of this band must not be, well, understated. "Voices" is rife with blown-out blue notes and phantasmic guitar tones, backed by softened vocals which sometimes stretch out in love-lost angst. With its simple but steadfast lyrics, Pure Ecstasy's "Voices" reminds us that you dont have to be a TS Eliot to be affective. --Ryan Ellis
Salem: "King Night" [IAMSOUND]
When it hit the blogosphere last June, Salem’s “King Night” felt BIG. Huge, even. In fact, it sounded like these Chicago enfant terribles were trying to pull us out of the muddy highway ditch that their Water EP had dumped us into just a few months earlier. Setting aside the half-hearted white-boy rhymes and syrup-slow siren calls for a minute, Salem shocked us with a sample that seemed to be the electronic trio's antithesis: a heavenly, full-choir rendition of the Christmas carol “O Holy Night”, which speaks of a coming savior, and is bound to evoke the starry-eyed rapture of your elementary school Christmas pageant. Six months ahead of season, “King Night” set its source material to paper-thin beats and a bassline so blown-out it made you check to see if your speakers were broken. It was hyperbolic, a bit tacky, and almost tragically optimistic. --Emilie Friedlander
Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters" [True Panther]
MP3: Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters"
On "Cheaters", Ohio duo Teengirl Fantasy explore the more interesting peripheries of house and dance music, rather than these genres' more central, crowd-pleasing elements. As a result, the track feels like a careful distillation of all those subtle pulsations, innate rhythmic shifts, and density of sound that make the club such a good place to be. The vocal source material, culled from Love Committee's 70s R&B cut "Cheaters Never Win", appropriately swirls like some pained smoke-machine spirit through all of this anti-banger's small gaps. --Shea Bermingham
Teen Inc.: "Fountains" [self-released]
Teen Inc. found something special this Spring in the super-smooth sound of fusion and funk. "Fountains" comes off super epic and endlessly groovy, a supreme trip through wobbly synthesizer, slapbass, and plaintive falsetto. Perhaps part of the reason this song has bounced around so much in my head (and in my iTunes) is because of the unfortunately small sample size of Teen Inc.'s catalog: two songs, one solitary, self-released 7" record. However, give me an LP full of this sound on a long drive any day and I guarantee you'll see a satisfied dude. Fingers crossed for something similar to this fantasy in 2011. --Ian Nelson
Tjutjuna: "Mosquito Hawk" [Fire Talk]
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MP3: Tjutjuna: "Mosquito Hawk"
Tjutjuna's "Mosquito Hawk" opens with a whirling psychedelic synth vortex. It maintains this ethereal prog façade just long enough to fade up the hyper-motorik and bury the intro's transcendent affectations beneath a mountain of guitar fuzz. Then, something strange happens: crashing symbols and the raw power of a chugging riff struggle to find their form as subjugated arpeggios begin to infect their oppressor, and guitar solos rip skyward to a heaven full of patch-chord glitches. This shock and awe of this moment can't help but fade back into the shimmering effervescence of a seesawing keyboard until, finally, they're wed in a moment of 70s Germanic Rock bliss. --d
Ty Segall: "My Sunshine" [Goner]
I don’t think there’s a single other track that I’ve listened to more than “My Sunshine” this year. Ty takes his signature garage-pop and toughens it with a dose of classic 90’s grunge brilliance. The song tears itself apart, screams till it's hoarse, and then snaps back into place; always on the edge of self-destruction but never ceding to the crush of its own noise. It's songs like this that make me wish that the spirit of '91 was still alive on the radio waves. Were it only a few decades earlier, this one would have every kid in the country howling along in their bedrooms. --Andy French
Vacant Lots: "Confusion" [Ancient Hills Music]
MP3: The Vacant Lots: "Confusion"
The "psych" tag has been getting thrown around pretty arbitrarily recently (day-glo hypnogogia?), but in the classic sense, it could hardly apply more than it does to the Vacant Lots. "Confusion", one a handful of absolute burners from this Burlington duo, doesn't aim for any vast imaginary worlds (though it does nod to some monolithic/prog-temple vibes), instead preferring a dopesmoking hypnosis and half-disquieting/half-cozy drug-rug nostalgia borne of teenage garage jam thrills and more acquired tastes for drone and minimal guitar mesmerics. --Richard MacFarlane
WU LYF: "Heavy Pop" [self-released]
It's refreshing to hear such genuine, visceral soul on this out-of-nowhere hit from mysterious Mancunian outfit WU LYF. Such rawness and emotion tends to be absent from a lot of contemporary leftfield pop, but "Heavy Pop" stays true to its namesake, trudging through continual set-backs and triumphs, drum-rolls, guitar chimes, and gravel-throated howls. The climax comes in the form of a rambunctious, exhausted collapse; fitting of a track so emotionally invested, and as a result, so gloriously draining. --Shea Bermingham
Prince Rama
Greatest Hits
Woven Bones
Teen Inc.
Altered Zones showcase at Death by Audio in Brooklyn, October 22nd, 2010
2:00 Hippos In Tanks Communal DJ Set with Games, Gatekeeper, Laurel Halo, and Von Haze
12:00 How To Dress Well DJ Set
11:00 John Maus
10:15 Prince Rama
9:30 Greatest Hits
8:45 Woven Bones
8:00 Teen Inc.
Visuals by Sunset Television
MP3: How To Dress Well: "Decisions Featuring Yuksel Arslan"
MP3: Prince Rama: "Thunderdrums"
MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"
Olde English Spelling Bee's latest find, Brooklyn's Greatest Hits present yet another crazy, off-the-wall music video with whirling cut-outs of fruits, fungi, pills, and syringes emerging from stretched eyelids. Director Alice Cohen provides the perfect visual accompaniment to Greatest Hits' perfectly short electro-glitch danse throwbacks. --Ric Leichtung, Altered Zones
Download the EP for free from their Soundcloud, check out more goodies on the Olde English Spelling Bee blog
Greatest Hits strut back into view with a vid for another bombastic future-funk head-fucker. Zagreb artist Hurricane Ike sets the gloopy liquid riddims and space-aged sass of “Stop And Go” (a mutation of the David Grant original) to some appropriately nutty footage of what appears to be a Croatian talent show. Todd from OESB gave us the low-down via a Zagreb local: “The video that you made for the band from your label is actually from a Serbian television station Pink that screens awful music called trubo folk, which is a mix of everything: gipsy music, MTV hits, folk songs, accordion tunes, funnily-dressed singers. Well, to sum it all up: quite trashy, quite kitsch. But it looks great with the Greatest Hits.” (via Transparent)
MP3: Greatest Hits : "Stop And Go"
Danse Pop 7” is out now on Olde English Spelling Bee
--Previously:
Olde English Spelling Bee just released Greatest Hits' debut 7" into the world via Soundcloud. That's right-- four songs spread over two 7" sides, 100% free, 100% MP3, 100% dance pop euphoria. Lead track "Danse Pop" dives right into what makes Greatest Hits great, melding pulverizing rhythms, singsong vocals, and a bouncing bass into one monster of a club jam. It kicks off muffled for a few seconds, like listening to a tape of songs you recorded off the radio when you were old enough to think it was actually a good idea. Then it takes off, greeting its ancestors with open arms, but at the same time gazing past them. "Danse Pop" updates a hyperactive and robotic electro sound of decades past by injecting a completely relatable, human, even romantic element. The only problem? It's over after 122 seconds. (via Friendship Bracelet)
GREATEST HITS "DANSE POP" from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.
MP3: Greatest Hits: "Danse Pop"
The Danse Pop 7" is now available for pre-order from Olde English Spelling Bee
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