Another Kind Of Love

Coin-Op “Favourite Subjects” – If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you may remember Coin-Op as the band from England who wrote “Hey Uri!,” a song that inexplicably tore into the spoon-bending, long-ago disgraced faux-psychic Uri Gellar. “Favourite Subjects” is no less bitter and abrasive, but its subject matter is more timely, if not timeless: Arrogant self-absorbed drug-fueled pricks. The song has a great momentum and a memorable scream-along chorus, and sounds kinda like a dancey version of McLusky, though the singer affects a slightly bizarre twang on its verses. (Click here for the Coin-Op website.)

The Knife “Marble House (Rex The Dog mix)” – The original version of “Marble House” is a romantic melodrama pushed to such an aesthetic extreme that its solemnity is nearly absurd. Its sentiment is super-concentrated, and so its emotional potency is overwhelming, basically redefining the word “hyperballad.” It’s not exactly a natural candidate for a dance remix, but Rex The Dog has outdone himself, speeding up the melody and amping up its dynamics without doing much to diminish its essential grandeur. Once it gets going, it actually begins to resemble Ace of Base, a group commonly invoked as a damning comparison by kneejerk anti-pop Knife detractors, but that’s no bad thing in this case. (Click here to buy it from AmpCamp.)

Elsewhere: “Indie rock NOW is a cult of marginalized success.” (Thanks to Carl.)

Also: “Wow, that’s so weird, like, I’ve never gotten along with someone that played all six strings on a guitar before!” – Watch a brief documentary about James Rabbit.