Get Your Sugar Rush

Girls Aloud “Sexy! No No No…” – If this is the first Girls Aloud song you’ve ever heard, you need to know right away that it’s not even the best, or even the most intense. While most mainstream and indie rock bands are busy mewling and meowing in this decade, Xenomania has been crafting loads of pumped-up pop songs for Girls Aloud and other UK pop acts that drastically exaggerate the dynamics of both rock and dance-pop to such extremes that it makes most everything else seem relatively flat and lifeless. Xenomania isn’t just trying to do a catchy tune — they want to hijack your body and throw you around, and keep pushing you to new levels of manic elation over the course of a three minute song. Girls Aloud may seem a bit blank on the surface, but the singers are ideally suited to Xenomania’s material, especially in the way they convey catty contemptuousness and a creepy sort of chick-lit nihilism. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Excepter “OP #2” “Stairwells” – John Fell Ryan mumbles through Excepter songs as though he’s unaware that anyone can hear his tone-deaf quasi-melodies. It’s expressive, but not at all communicative, and so tracks that would already come across a bit like some stranger’s brain turned inside-out seem even more alien and aloof. This piece seems slightly chaotic, but its textures are brilliant, and its lateral progression and recurring rhythmic and melodic motifs reveal a knack for detailed composition that is often obscured by their penchant for shapeless longform improvisations. (Click here for the Excepter website.)

Edit:

Matthew,
Your review of “OP#2” is of an intra-band demo ripped from a stolen iPod
an not intended for release. The “official” version of the track is
“Stairwells” on disc 2 of STREAMS 01. The “real” version of “OP” is a
double 7″ coming soon on iDeal Recordings and is fairly different than the
bootleg circulating. You don’t need to take the mp3 down, but maybe you
could properly identify it as an “unreleased demo/outtake bootleg” of
“Stairwells.” Thanks.
Yours,
John Fell Ryan
Excepter

Elsewhere: Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox wrote a really good blog entry about Stereolab’s song “Blue Milk.”