Forty Minutes Of Fontaines D.C.

Fontaines D.C. had an album out in August, their fourth, a record called Romance. It's the sound of a five piece guitar band about to go massive. They sounded a little bit jaded on 2022's Skinty Fia I thought but Romance is the band firing on all cylinders, expanding and playing around. The band said that a wider range of influences were brought to the table for Romance- hip hop, Massive Attack, Deftones, Alice In Chains, various films including Akira and Wings of Desire, the Beat poets, Dylan Thomas and on final song Favourite, Johnny Marr's c1986 Smiths guitar sound. It's a really good record and judging by the live appearances I've seen on TV they're on fire at gigs too. A friend went to an early evening album launch gig in Liverpool  and said they were superb. 

They've got themselves a memorable look as well. Vocalist/ lyricist Grian is wearing a black skirt/ kilt and big boots and the rets are mixing up vests, tattoos, green or red dyed hair, bug eye sunglasses, neon green and yellow jackets, massive platform trainers. In the guitar indie rock world the easiest/ classic look is to go fringes, skinny jeans and leather jackets, channel the Velvet Underground and the 1960s or the post punk early 80s. I like the fact they're playing around with their image, a look that is most definitely not classic or canonical and which likely makes little sense to anyone under the age of thirty.

Four albums, various remixes, a Grian Chatten solo album, a Nick Drake cover- it seemed the time was right for a Sunday mix. 

Forty Minutes Of Fontaines D.C.

• 'Cello Song
• I Was Not Born
• A Hero's Death
• A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)
• Here's The Thing
• Televised Mind (Dave Clarke Remix)
• Favourite
• Romance
• All Of The People

'Cello Song is a cover of a Nick Drake song from a tribute album last year, The Endless Coloured Ways. Nick's original version is my favourite Nick Drake song. Fontaines D.C. do what any good cover should- respects the original but tramples all over it too. Fontaines  version is a real beauty, a rockabilly drumbeat, grungy guitars and Grian's Dublin drawl re- interpreting nick's fragile lyrics. The words have taken on a new meaning for me since Isaac's death- I've written about them before- especially these lines...

'But while the earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky
On the crest of a wave

So forget this cruel world
Where I belong
I'll just sit and wait
And sing my song
And if one day you should see me in the crowd
Lend a hand and lift me
To your place in the cloud'

I Was Not Born is from A Hero's Death, the second FDC album, from 2020. It's a blast of Dublin storytelling and street poetry, twin post punk guitars, Grian declaiming 'I was not born/ Into this world/ To do another man's bidding...' Electrifying stuff. 

A Hero's Death is from the same album (obviously), a calling card and the song that really turned my head to the band. The guitars pile in, chords slashing like a beefed up Last Nite by The Strokes, and Grian's words are a series of pieces of advice, a list, punctuated by the refrain, 'life ain't always empty'. 'Don't get stuck in the past', Grian says, 'Say your favourite things at mass/ Tell your mother you love her/ Go out of your way for others' and rattles through all sorts of killer lines before concluding 'If we give ourselves to every breath/ We're all in the running for a hero's death'. Two ears ago, listening to this in the car, with thoughts of Isaac's death on my mind, this song reduced me to tears. Powerful stuff.

The Soulwax remix came out on 12", the Belgian duo spinning Fontaines D.C.  from Dublin to the Balearics. I played this out once in a bar and a young bloke came up to me, enthusing about it and asking if it was Fontaines.

Here's The Thing is from this year's album Romance, the words written following  an argument between Grian and guitarist Carlos O' Connell. The guitars are superb, distorted and crunchy. Favourite ends the record. Romance starts it. I included them both here and switched them around. 'Maybe Romance is a place for you and me' Grian finishes the title track with. Here the line segues into All of The People.

Televised Mind is from A Hero's Death and is here in remixed form by techno don Dave Clarke, a enthralling, synth squiggle, bottom end heavy remix that shoves Fontaines into new places. 

All Of The People is from Grain Chatten's solo album Chaos For The Fly, released last year, a record that showed there was life beyond FDC with electronics, acoustic guitars and strings and a sombre, melancholic feel. 

Monday's Long Song

More LCD Soundsystem long song Monday action. In 2005 DFA released a single CD titled Holiday Mix, nine DFA tracks over fifty minutes, almost all remixes of DFA artists by others. Black Dice, LCD Soundsystem, The Juan MacLean, Delia Gonzales and Gavin Russom all appear with remixes from Loumo, Booka Shade, Cajmere, X- Press 2, Soulwax and Tiga. When playing this in the car recently this pair stood out...

Tribulations (Tiga Remix)

Tiga, a producer, programmer and DJ from Canada, ramps up one of the key songs from LCD Soundsystem's self titled debut album, nearly eight minutes of uptempo, messed up, four- four dance floor mayhem. James Murphy doesn't appear until three minutes in, with a very New Order- esque vocal line- 'Everybody makes mistakes/ But I feel alright when I come undone'. Tiga keeps going, turning the knobs, synths and drums piling in, and there's a tension building breakdown at four and a half minutes, just Murphy and a bassline, before the snare and kick drum core- enter and everything gets full on and whizzy again.

As this is a mixed CD the next track segues in at seven minutes, the Soulwax remix of Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, and then unfortunately it comes to a very abrupt end. But you can cue this up to take over straight away and let it frazzle your senses. Soulwax pull no punches, everything in the red and overloaded. 

Daft Punk Is Playing At My House (Soulwax Shibuya Remix)

Monday's Long Songs

The Monday long song slot LCD Soundsystem/ DFA takeover continues. Last Monday was LCD Soundsystem's Freak Out/ Starry Eyes, which followed the DFA remix of Le Tigre the previous week. Today, two further remixes but this time remixes of LCD Soundsystem by others, both from 2007.

Carl Craig, second wave of Detroit techno legend, remixed the title track from LCD's album of the same year, Sound Of Silver. James Murph's vocal refrain remains intact, 'Sound of silver talk to me/ Makes you feel like a teenager/ Until you remember the feelings of/ A real life emotional teenager/ Then you think again'. Around this piece of wisdom, Carl constructs a sleek nine minute machine ride with thudding drums, a synth drone at the top end that nags away, keyboard parts and not a little drama. 

Sound Of Silver (c2 rmx rev.3)

Soulwax remixed Get Innocuous!, ten minutes and one second of Belgian dancefloor nirvana, kicking off with just drums and then gradually bringing the keys in, Nancy Wang's voice, shiny 80s production, Murphy's Bowie- esque vocal, juddering synth stabs, the whole kit and caboodle. 

Get Innocuous! (Soulwax Remix)

Full Way Round

Leftfield have a new album out next month. This Is What We Do will be their fourth since the early 90s and Leftfield now is only Neil Barnes, Paul Daley having departed some time ago. Barnes has had a rough few years not least recovering from cancer. The album continues the run of strong guest vocalists- John Lydon, Djum Djum, Toni Halliday, Afrika Bambaataa and Roots Manuva have all stepped up to the microphone previously. This time around vocal contributions come from poet Lemn Sissay and Fontaines D.C. singer Grian Chatten. Grian's voice and words on Full Way Round add much to the track, his Dublin street poetics playing off against and with Leftfield's distorted, hard hitting dub techno. 

Which reminds me that I still haven't caught up with Fontaines D.C. album from earlier this year, Skinty Fia. I do have though a pair of remixes from last year that get pulled out round the Bagging Area way fairly often, the giddy, joyous Balearic stylings brought to A Hero's Death by Soulwax (a song I find inexplicably moving) and the full on grungy bassline, needles- in- the- red, massive kick drum, bleep techno version of Televised Mind by Dave Clarke.

A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)

Televised Mind (Dave Clarke Remix)

(Blue) Monday's Long Song

There are songs that you can think you've heard enough, that despite loving them since your youth you never really need to actively pull them out and play in full. At a gig or a night out or heard in passing from a shop/ radio/ car they still hit the spot and sound like they used to but there's not much more you can get from them. Sometimes I feel like that about Blue Monday. Then Soulwax/ Too Many DJs did a remix of Blue Monday for the BBC 6 Desert Island Disco a couple of weeks ago, taking the mastertapes, some snippets from interviews, a live performance and turning it into an extended twenty minute version, the familiar sounds- Hooky's Ennio Morricone inspired bassline, the DMX drum pattern, the whooshing sounds, the choir sample (Kraftwerk), the sequencer, Bernard's vocal (from a variety of sources), the handclaps- re- ordered. 

The story of Blue Monday is so familiar to New Order fans- Stephen forgetting to save the original drum pattern, the encore avoiding intention, the die- cut Peter Saville sleeve and floppy disc inspiration for that, the loss on each copy sold despite it being the best selling 12" of 1983, Kraftwerk's dropped jaws at seeing the equipment New Order managed to invent the future on- and it's all part of the history of the record. Sometimes you just need to hear the record afresh. Soulwax have managed to pull that trick off. 

Here's the B-side from that original 12", their own instrumental remix of Blue Monday from 1983 and always worth a spin, giving the familiar a different slant. 

The Beach

In February 2002 (twenty years ago next week if you really want to feel old) Kylie Minogue played this at The Brits, the glorious, irreverent lovechild of her smash hit and New Order's.

Can't Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head

Sit Beneath A Light That Suits Ya

Dublin's poetry/ guitar guttersnipes Fontaines D.C. have been remixed by Belgium's remix/ mash up party kings Soulwax,. A Hero's Death is ideal May Day bank holiday weekend music- a drum machine, NY disco- not- disco vibes, an FX strewn, mechanical chugger. Singer Grian Chatten dispenses wisdom- 'life ain't always empty/ life ain't always empty.... don't get stuck in the past/ say your favourite things at mass/ tell your mother you love her/ and go out of your way for others....' 

Deadly Valentine

Charlotte Gainsbourg has a new album, Rest, out on Friday. A few weeks ago this song came out, a brilliant piece of dreamy electro-pop, with all the right parts in all the right places.

Soulwax's remix of the same song came out a few days ago,with Belgian beats and cowbell and stretched out over eight minutes. Not quite as instant and emphatic as the original but worth a spin.