SKWEEE (is back)

Here it is: your dose of SKWEEE for the day: here. It's so Scandinavian and weird that you can't help but love it. I'm not saying that you should dance to it, or even that you CAN dance to it. In fact, I don't even know what to right about it, so I'll just bullshit a bit. This music is like listening to two badgers discussing their tax refunds. There. What does that even mean? Who knows. Exactly. But what I can tell you with some certainty is that those synths are amazing. There's something fancy in those glaciers and fjords that's making their electronics do funky weird things. And I'm pretty sure that guy in the track just made a fart sound. Somewhere out there, Todd Rickert is smiling.

Marcus Price - Metropol Skweee Mix 2 pt II from Marcus Price at Letsmix.com.

FLASHLIGHTS AND EXPLOSIONS

I saw those crazy Norwegians, Royksopp, on Wednesday, and all I have to say is -- WTF did I just experience? Light helmets/arm guns/cheesecloth bag and feather masks/stuffed brain costumes accented with EL wire/etc all of which had a distinctly DIY look. I think the best part of the concert was when their synth master guru put on a full body poncho - head included - and they just jammed out for ten minutes. Rad. Ya'll missed out. Shouts to my secretly Swedish friend for witnessing that madness with me.

Per (I'M OUTING YOU) and I got their early and saw the opener: Jon Hopkins. This guy was amazing. He's a DJ spinning his own music that he recreates entirely on the fly. Watching him do this was incredible. I've never seen anyone move so fast tweaking knobs, turning dials, sliding digital turntables and playing a midi controller the whole time. Seriously, see him in person if you ever have the chance. While this doesn't compare to watching him do this live, here's a digital copy of a pretty neat song he played:

Jon Hopkins - Colour Eye by palmer eldritch

Ch-ch-check him out. And see Royksopp live if you're into really weird shit.

Violence erupts in Scandinavia

This is what happens when your country has no sunlight for half the year: awesome electro videos.

WHERE WAS THIS DEVICE DURING *MY* CHILDHOOD???

You certainly wouldn't have found it around my house. Thus the ineptitude. But maybe, JUST MAYBE, if I'd had a Red Rider BB Gun, I meeaaaaan a TYCO HOT KEYZ, my life would have been changed forever and I'd be the coolest kid on the block and have half a concept of what attack, decay, sustain, or release mean. But in another, more accurate way, I probably would have just broken it or forgotten about it once its D-sized batteries ran out and my parents refused to buy me any more because of the GAWDAWFUL RACKET.

Either way, Wahlström and Valiant (the first of which sounds vaguely scandinavian, to their credit) made a mix that uses this for everything but the drums. And it's amazing. Just think about it: little DJ PRETENTIOUS, age 9, playing this song. I know, it wouldn't have actually happened, BUT I CAN DREAM.

HOT KEYZ

Further proof that scandinavians know what's up

Norway has fjords, and also SKWEEE, which is essentially 80s synth grooves played poorly but successfully.

Here is an example of an excellent track from dødpop's new compilation (vol. 2):


And this is what Skweee is, from the horse's mouth:


More to follow, if I'm not lazy...

UPDATE:
Big Up has an excellent podcast of Daniel Salvo mixing up the skweee.

Still more to follow, but the dissertation comes first.