This new semi-regular feature of notable new dance singles is inaugurated with reviews of Holy Ghost!, Syclops, Professor Genius, Kavinsky, Surgeon and Blast Head.Holy Ghost!, "Hold On"
DFA
The two guys in Brooklyn's Holy Ghost! released an album under the name Automato a few years ago, an indie HipHop album with the distinction of being produced by Tim Goldsworthy and James Murphy of the DFA. The album was poorly received by many, including me. On paper, the idea sounded great; in reality, it was boring. The duo went on to be part of The Juan Maclean's live touring band, and something major rubbed off on them. Their first single as Holy Ghost! is a thing of rare beauty: a soulful, sophisticated slice of thumping vocal disco capable of snapping spines and concussing heads. The elements are all familiar: gated synth lead, air-pushing bassline, phased electric piano, snappy hi-hats. What pushes this over the top is the vocals, which add an unbelievable melodic hook, turning this track into something that cannily straddles radio-friendly pop and uptown groove. The lyrics are suggestive but meaningless: "Hold tight, don't make no plans/Don't talk, don't say no words/Be still, don't move like this/Hold on, until it kills." The whole thing is unbelievably cool, and is well-served on DFA's usual slab of plain-sleeved DJ vinyl, which adds an instrumental and a remix by French disco-house producers Blackjoy. Usually I'd be excited about an instrumental version, but the vocals here are half the fun. Blackjoy's remix adds layers of compression, wokka-jawokka bass and funky percussion. They make it sound more professional, but they also kill the wide-open spaces of the original in the process. The A-Side wins, hands-down.
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Syclops, "Where's Jason's K"/"Monkey Puss" 
Another fabulous new single for DFA, who have finally ended a bit of a losing streak after lackluster full-lengths by Prinzhorn Dance School and the Shocking Pinks. Syclops is yet another nom de guerre for Dr. Scratch himself, Maurice Fulton, surely one of the more mysterious members of the techno/house elite. As Syclops, Fulton makes geeked-up robot funk that is minimal in architecture, but maximal in effect. The synthetic kick drum on "Where's Jason's K" threatens to get boring quickly, before it is joined by itchy maracas, cowbell and an indescribably infectious 1/16th note lead melody that keeps changing subtly, but never fails to give up the goods. It's like the best possible cool jazz piano solo ever, but abstracted into plasticated Ketamine land. The B-side is every bit as fucked-up, constructed from chirpy, ultra-compressed 8bit chiptune kinda sounds, layered with a crisp, snappy rhythm section that just doesn't quit, even when it is unceremoniously dropped into the dub chamber. This one is right out of left field, and all the better for it.
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Professor Genius, "La Grotta"
Italians Do It Better 
Self-important music blogs the world over have already done a good job fawning all over the Italians Do It Better label, acting as if IDIB had singlehandedly engineered the Italo-disco comeback. The truth is that Italo-disco never went away, it just stopped being cool for a few years while critics and tastemakers busied themselves jacking off all over minimal house and flabby electro bullshit. For good or bad, it's officially "back" now, and the unprecedented popularity of the IDIB label sampler After Dark certainly proves it. Of all the artists represented on that compilation, far and away the best is Professor Genius, who recently released a stunning full-length CD-R on the hopelessly obscure Tropical Computer System label. This single contains three tracks from the full-length, and got a nice 12" vinyl release on IDIB. Professor Genius works his analog synths with the panache of a seasoned pro, creating sparkling atmospheric disco numbers that stretch out into a rainbow-colored infinity. If Goblin and Giorgio Moroder could have conceived a love child while listening to Kano, it would probably sound nothing like Professor Genius. "La Grotta" has an insistent rhythm section which serves as a foil of the whimsically enfolding synths, which vacillate between nasty and angelic. The infernal "Hot Dice" is darker and druggier, with plenty of ear-massaging bass polyphony, while "Across the Spree" brings things back up to heaven again, the soundtrack to an episode of Miami Vice in which Crockett and Tubbs try to intercept a shipment of black tar heroin into Cloud City.
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Kavinsky, "1986"
Record Makers 
I've been a little bit underwhelmed by the preponderance of hyper-compressed, sample-heavy French disco-house groups lately. As far as I'm concerned, Daft Punk, Justice and the whole Ed Banger crew need to learn some new tricks, because overcompressing samples of old Cerrone tracks is only amusing the first five-hundred times you hear it. Kavinsky is certainly a member of this crew, but he keeps things fresh by injecting a goodly portion of Italo-disco into his headbanging disco-house. Making use of clean synth lines, purposely cheesy string stabs, hyper-tweaked guitar solos, and crunchy kicks that still retain a nice, hard snap to them, Kavinsky creates a thrilling retro-disco concoction that doesn't feel completely claustrophobic and deafening. The tracks on the 1986 EP are frequently blood-pumping, heart-pounding examples of how to do retro right. Things falter a bit with SebatiAn's remix of "Testarossa Overdrive," which succeeds at cramming Kavinsky's sound back into the stifling straightjacket of Ed Banger-style compression-house, and can't sustain its five-minute length. However, the EP ends with the beautiful and triumphant "Grand Canyon," which makes it sound as if nothing has really changed since 1986, except for everything.
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Surgeon, "Whose Bad Hands Are These? Part II"
Dynamic Tension 
Anthony Child has existed at the very brink of techno for more than a decade now, a reliable purveyor of intense, machinic 4/4 stomp compounded with layers of hellish resonance. The music is hard as nails and dances at the giddy, vertiginous edge of industrial and power noise, but always lands firmly inside the realm of hardcore techno. Child has never been shy about wearing his influences on his sleeve. As an ardent fan of Coil, Whitehouse and other such non-traditional fare (for dance producers, anyway), Surgeon has carved out his own niche in the world of dance: the pleasurable punisher, the enforcer of sado-ecstatic technoise. This new one on Surgeon's own Dynamic Tension label, the second part of a conceptual pair, is just what everyone looks for in a Surgeon record: a devastating mixture of doomsday dirge and apocalyptic rave-up, complex crunchy textures slamming into resonated plonks pulled straight from Satan's asshole. There is a bit of an influence from British dubstep in evidence on this EP, and not just because Vex'd turns in a remix. Something about the way the surface noise and echo are used seems to suggest the work of Burial and Vex'd, without falling into their annoying habit of just giving up on the groove completely.
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Blast Head, "Slide Out"/"Soft Step"
Lastrum 
I don't know anything about this Japanese duo, and I don't really care. This tasty slab of hard-to-find DJ vinyl reproduces two tracks from their full-length album Outdoor, and evidences two different approaches meeting and shaking hands on a crowded dancefloor. On "Slide Out," the idea is percolating synthesizers, dub-style circulations of compounding delay, and sunshine-bright sequences of beeps and boops. Blast Head's music displays the Japanese gift (or curse?) for preciousness and cartoonish pastiche, but a complex backbone of jazzy electric organ gives this a sophistication that would make it fit right in with the classiest uptempo lounge music that NYC, Paris or Ibiza could hope to produce. "Soft Step" takes the jazz a step further, a whacked-out samba-house number that pours it on thick, but keeps things bubbly and light as air. The effect is reminiscent to some of Japan's weirder, exotica-tinged entries into hyperspeed jungle (think The Lift Boys or J.O.Y.), but the microscopic precision and care with which this track was obviously constructed make it a pure and guiltless pleasure.
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