The re-arrival of synths has dominated the indie music scene in the last couple of years, from The Killers and The Klaxons to The Strokes and Simian Mobile Disco that little high-pitched squeal has been everywhere and its got indie kids the nation over remembering how to dance. And with a certain indie rave tour starting in a couple of weeks and threatening to be the best damned gig of the year, this compilation is pretty nicely timed. As with most of these types of albums you’ve probably already got half the stuff here, like CSS’s “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above”, The Gossip’s “Standing In The Way Of Control”, Soulwax’s “NY Excuse” (Fast Version) and Sunshine Underground’s “I Ain’t Losing Any Sleep” (a brilliant Serge Santiago remix) but there’s also some pretty darned funky stuff you probably haven’t. Highlights include the fantastically moody “Black Moon” by A Human which comes on like a darker Soft Cell/ New Order hybrid with the ludicrously brilliant line ‘listen here, this is the plan/ I’m gonna be bigger than Jean Claude Van Damme’. The Alan Braxe and Fred Falke remix of DFA 1979’s “Black Moon” is also great, as is the stop-start “Change Channel”
by Lo-Fi-Fnk and Toyshop’s “Violent Light”. Inevitably there’s a couple of duff tracks such as Zoot Woman’s “Grey Day” and Shy Child’s “Down On Yourself” (why choose this over his soon-to-be-dance-classic “Drop The
Phone”?) but there’s more than enough here to compensate. While this perhaps has too many big hitters that are already in your record collection to make it an essential purchase, this is still a fantastic pre-indie club-night cd and a great little timepiece of the shape of the music scene in 2007.
Tour dates (all dates feature Shy Child, A Human and Metronomy):
