Annie Mac premiered this solo track by Joe Goddard (of Hot Chip and 2 Bears fame) last Friday. Since then I've been chasing it like crazy and thanks to Pitchfork, I caught up with it. Featuring the London based singer Valentina, who has a really delicate voice and produces heart-softening folk on her own; this song might just be the house hit of the year.

'Gabriel' is built around house beats, violins and a palpitating desperation in the vocals which combine places that are miles away from shitty/predictable house songs like, let's say, Duck Sauce's 'Big Bad Wolf'. If I had to compare it with another contemporary act, I'd say it sounds a bit like Katy B, if the edge of her album wasn't cut in exchange for a better mainstream reception - and for the record, I do believe Miss B has released one of the best of the year.

And to make it even better, the lyrics are as a good as the instrumental. Check our favorite bit below.

“Gabriel you’ve gone too far and you should hang your head in shame / for these wounds I cannot pay, you’ve gone too far /

you broke my heart, you’ve gone too far”

Joe Goddard - Gabriel (Feat. Valentina) by DFA Records

The Gabriel EP is out today via DFA and Greco-Roman (co-owned by Goddard himself). Stream it all now.

Joe Goddard - Gabriel by DFA Records

By the way, we already have Bat for Lashes' Daniel, and now there's Gabriel... when will a Raphael and a Christel be out?

Alexis Hot Chip DJ Mix June 2011 by Hot Chip

Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor is remixing the track he sang on Shit Robot’s debut album, ‘Losing My Patience’, which sounded pretty great in its original form; like an overly synthesized, yet warm pop house ballad. In the remix though, Alexis makes it sound too dry, leaving it a bit soulless; even though there's more soul in these vocals than in entire top 100 of Billboard. Eventually, the remix gets better, but only after going on for over 5 minutes. Though if you have the time and like techno, why not?

Shit Robot - Losing My Patience (Hot Chip Remix) by DFA Records

‘Losing My Patience’ comes out April 18th via DFA Records with a remix and dub by Unabombers.

WIN WIN's debut album is already available at Vice Records (you should check our introduction post for more information). One of the project owners, XXXchange, decided to do a solo reinterpretation of their latest single, ‘Interleave’, which features the suave vocals of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor.

If you remember, I said that ‘Interleave’ had a great melody, especially in the vocals, but didn’t have that hit factor. It's just that when you use Alexis Taylor's suave voice on an electro tune, we expect another ‘Hot Chip - Boy From School (Erol Alkan Extended Rework)’. This addictive remix also doesn’t deliver that hit factor I was hoping for, but it does sound like it’s a remix of one. Titled the “1993 mix”, this rework has some siren synths that could cross to the wrong side of the road at any time, though they manage to remain on the right path, being both cheesy and effective all the while.

There are plenty of win-win situations I could choose to illustrate for the beginning of this post, but I’m going for the obvious one here since it’s about a new project from people you like and it features some free good music. Win-win, right?

XXXchange, DJ Chris Devlin and visual artist Ghostdad (also known as the guy that managed to make a cool song using a baby crying and a vuvuzela) are WIN WIN. While the project doesn’t really have any back story – just friends making music together - it’s very strong in its collaborations. For example, the first single, ‘Releaserpm’, features vocals from Liz Bougatsos (Gang Gang Dance).

And contrary to my expectations, the music is not a case of heavy drums and strong club bass like Spank Rock. In fact, it’s closer to Gang Gang Dance than Spank Rock itself. The percussion and the effects on Liz' vocals gives it an African sound, but in a very chill manner – even when the drums get faster. Overall, it sounds like something that Kate Bush would happily release.

Dave Nada and Matt Nordstrom (a.k.a. Nadastrom) remixed ‘Releaserpm’” in the style of Moonbaton, the micro-genre created by Nada himself, according to Vice. Besides the fact that creating your own genre is a rather cunty thing to do, the remix is actually very very good. It’s quite similar to the original, but with better drums and a more clear concept. Maybe Moonbaton is about to leave the micro-genre category for the world? 

OBS. This MP3 has a small problem and doesn't let us write tags, it should say: WIN WIN - Releaserpm (Nadastrom Moombaton Remix)

The second single, ‘Interleave’, keeps the chill vibe of the first, but in an electro environment and there's no one better than Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor to lay his sweet voice over a beautifully produced and very melodramatic instrumental. The more I listen to it the more it reminds me of Daft Punk’s soundtrack for ‘Tron: Legacy’, but while it matches the French duo’s production this song lacks a good hook. Not bad, but as a single, it fails to deliver a hit.

But I’m keeping my expectations up. Especially after watching the cool video teasers Ghostdad produced for the album to illustrate this post. They are a mix of internet memes, old television shows, infomercials, cut magazines, space and religious icons. And so far, both videos used songs slightly more banging than the singles released, which could always lead to something good since we are talking about XXXchange here.

WIN WIN debut's drops on February 15 on Vice Records.

HIYA: We // R \\ at Planeta Terra 2010

After failing to wrangle press credentials to Brazil's premier 'indie' music festival, Planeta Terra, we had to try other routes to get to Sao Paulo's Playcenter (an amusement park). Thankfully, by the grace of our very good friends Flavia Durante, Hector Lima, Dago Donato and with a special big thank you to of Montreal's Bryan Poole, we received our golden tickets and entry to one of the most organised, punctual and civilised festivals I've ever been to.

Though for a brief moment I did feel rather like a second class citizen, as men and women were split into two queues to go through security as only girl on girl and boy on boy pat downs are allowed. The girls queue took forever and I fumed silently as all the boys just kept streaming past. For this, I should have at least tried to smuggle some verboten substances through the gates. Unlike airport security, they didn't ask me to take off my shoes (I wore my 4 inch wedge platforms. What? That extra 4 inches helps when you're standing in a crowd a billion people deep), so I might've succeded with a secret shelf inside my platform. Still there was the whiff of weed in the air and a discreet little baggie or two to be seen.

Because speaking of which, undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the civility of Planeta Terra is that there's a law (here's where my facts get hazy - Brazilians, if you know, holler at us) in São Paulo that says something like: if you have more than x amount of people in a venue, beer is the only alcohol allowed to be sold. The pros and cons are obvious, but it's in this way that you get an altogether generally more chilled and polite crowd of people ambling between the two stages and lining up for rollercoasters, bumper cars and tower of terror type rides.

We didn't manage to hop onto any rides unfortunately, as priority was to run between very prompt sets on opposite ends of the park. Our schedule went something like this:

of Montreal

Yeasayer

Passion Pit

Phoenix

Hot Chip

and Empire of the Sun

Of Montreal // HIYA Kevin! WE LOVE YOU!

It's a given that Of Montreal were magnificent, with a beautiful pink sunset decorating stage left, it was a glorious way for the festival to open. We are of the opinion that they should have closed the Indie stage instead of opening the mainstage, but whatever, we were just very happy to see them at all.

Of Montreal // the epic proportions of the main stage

We scooted over to Yeasayer next. The last time I saw Yeasayer play was back in early 2008 in London. They were just really starting to break at the time; and despite thoroughly enjoying the set, I remember being a little disappointed at how much of it was playback. This time around though, they've swapped out a couple of members and have additional musicians looking after beats, electronica and percussiony type details.

Yeasayer // HIYA Anand

They played really great gig, wherein they also pulled out a lot of favorites from All Hour Cymbals. Vocalist Chris made a 'Hello Buenos Aires' faux pas, but did manage to make up for it by at least attempting to speak some Portuguese (thanks to his Brazilian wife, we're guessing).

Yeasayer // the indie stage, next to a Castelo de Horrores

We hung around for Passion Pit and Michael's heavily filtered vocals and jumped ship mid-way through the set to catch Phoenix (though to be honest, as solid performances as both did, I kinda wished I could see PS 22 do their renditions of the bands instead).

Passion Pit // Hiya Michael

Despite the rumor milling churning São Paulo into a frenzy over an alleged appearance by Daft Punk with Phoenix at the festival due to supposed appearances by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter at various hot spots around the city, we cynical unbelievers also left mid-way through Phoenix's set to catch a breather, a piss and another beer.

The Castle of Horrors next to the Indie stage

By then, Hot Chip were up and man, were they so impressive. They were probably my favourite act of the day; with that fabulous live steel drum action and Alexis Taylor's vocal warming me from the ends of my (very long) pony tail to the bottom of my platformed feet.

Hot Chip // Hiya Alexis

And last band of the night for us was arguably the most controversial act of the day, Empire of the Sun. Sure it was odd that for a synth pop band, there wasn't a synth to be seen on stage, and sure a helluva lot of it was playback, but I really enjoyed the showmanship of the performance. Some new songs were debuted and we weren't particularly impressed compared to those tracks from Walking On A Dream, but it was a fun spectacle to watch and listen to none-the-less, closing with a guitar smashing finale.

Empire of the Sun // Hiya Luke

It was, all in all, an excellent day and a festival that was well planned, polite and polished; though I guess all that makes it sound the opposite of what a traditional festival should be, really. In reality, they can be quite an ordeal, especially when music is actually the last thing on most people's minds and the festival is instead simply an exercise for a wretchedly wasted, hot-tranny-mess of a time. Which is fun too, but I was super happy to be able to hang my platforms up at the end of the day well satisfied at the whole event. Congratulations for a festival well done, São Paulo! Now on to the next one...

GALLERY

Congratulations to people at Converse. Their project of getting three different bands in order to make one new song might be the first in the category that has actually managed to produce good new music. They started off really well with Julian Casablancas, Santigold and Pharrell, then moved to more hipster territory with Vampire Weekend, Best Coast and Kid Cudi; the project now is giving a nod to all the electronic music fans bringing together New Order’s Bernard Sumner, Hot Chip and Hot City.

The result was ‘Didn't Know What Love Was’, a new song that sounds like a classic anthem featuring house pianos very similar to Nôze’s ‘Remember Love’; with early Madchester spirit, romantic lyrics and that melancholic danceability that Hot Chip is so good at making. So get ready to dance while singing your heart out in the nearest club.

The song also comes with an expensive looking video featuring different sized impersonators of the musicians, plus mimes, monkey drummers and random people eating bananas and playing maracas. Crazy and good!

Chew Lips are making their way back to the blog world with a remix for the project. It feels simple and much more mature than the music they released in their debut; yet very sexy and the perfect song to open your club night. If only they changed the instrumental a touch more in the chorus, this remix would've been much more interesting, but fine. Hot City also did a club version of the song, but you should stay away from that – unless you are a fan of heavy, dry drums.

Kisses @ O-Nest Japan

I might’ve been a bit too harsh talking about Kisses’ ‘People Can Do The Most Amazing Things’ video and I think it was my own fault, not Kisses. I didn’t get their kitsch humor at the time. But I think I kinda get it now, and this new understanding even makes them more cute.

For their newest single, ‘Kisses’, Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson dress as astronauts and go to a cheap-looking moon. There, they explore, get hungry and fire up some sausages. They go exploring again, find an exotic E.T., introduce him to the wonderful world of marshmallows and in return, he takes them on a psychedelic space trip that ends up in a swimming pool on Earth. How awesome is that? Well, not as awesome of the song, but still…

By the way, the band is offering the song for free. So if you want to grab one of the most chilled songs of the year, just do it below. Joe Goddard (Hot Chip) also did a remix for the song and it’s also a free download (see not only cute, but also very nice), so if you are for a minimal and extended version of the song, you know what to do.