Justice – Audio, Video, Disco (2011) [Ed Banger] // Grade: C+

In 2008, it was weird to watch thousands of American festival-goers — kids who had only moments before been watching Vampire Weekend and Hot Chip, who had all but ignored Amon Tobin way out there on another stage — watch what amounted to a couple DJs. It was weird to see San Francisco’s Treasure Island explode when Justice took the decks; even weirder to watch the sweaty, neon mess of humanity stay rapt — not just interested, but moving; not just moving, but freaking the fuck out — for well beyond an hour. These were the early days of America’s pseudo-mainstream love affair with dance music and DJ culture. Justice, for all anyone knew back then, was the future.

I don’t need to tell you how the atmosphere’s changed. How in the years since Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé released their 2007 debut Cross, there’s been an electronic revolution; how college campuses now prefer dubstep to Dave Matthews, club nights to keggers. I also don’t need to tell you how Justice had a hell of a mountain to climb, releasing their sophomore record in this altered landscape. You have to wonder: Could Cross hold the same sway in America now that it did back then? It went hard, but maybe not hard enough. Not anymore.

But Justice haven’t made another Cross. They also haven’t made some post-dubstep anthem or French house revival; they haven’t gone harder or more aggressive, at least not in any quantifiable way. They’ve made what Busy P calls Stadium Disco. For all intents and purposes: An electronic arena-rock record.

And if it’s not the greatest thing you’ve ever heard, at least it’s not totally god-awful. Audio, Video, Disco is equal parts Boston, Giorgio Moroder, Queen and Guilty Gear X: An album that looks backward to bitcrushed video game music as much as it does classic rock anthems. The stadium strut of “On’n’on” and “Horsepower;” the “Born to Be Wild” vibe of “New Lands” and Freddie Mercury vocals on “Ohio;” the beautifully intricate, if ren-festy, “Canon (Primo)” — so much of Audio attempts to go beyond the build, drop, build, drop expectation of popular dance music. It’s witty and energetic, as well-constructed as it is silly, and arguably unlike anywhere Justice has been before.

Trouble is, we’ve been here before. Underground culture especially has gone once, twice, three times through the arena-rock obsession. We’ve loved and hated and re-loved the 80s 8-bit video game vibe. We’ve probably even heard people talk about doing shit like this, and to Justice’s credit: They actually did it. Audio, Video, Disco is about as far as any one band can go without becoming straight-up parody; though the tracks border on hokey, with all those digitized riffs and stomps, they’re at least reverent of the music they’re referencing. But if Cross is the duo’s yardstick for both production and songwriting success — if both it and Daft Punk captivated so much of 2007 simply by sounding unlike anything on the mainstream horizon — then Audio, Video, Disco has a lot of explaining to do. This is, for better or worse, no longer the future; it’s just a strange step sideways for the duo. And only time (plus another round of festivals in this latest DJ-obsessed environment) will tell if that’s enough.

Somewhere in Porto, Portugal — at the edge of blue earth, this ancient city perched on a river — Ivo Pacheco sits in a room, making songs. He makes “Tears,” and it sounds like tears. “Change and Love” like the terrifying uncertainty of both. He’s influenced by witch house but well beyond its borders; IVVVO is like Porto itself. Old, mysterious and entirely its own being.

It’s tough to know where to begin with IVVVO; for a producer so entwined in ghostly atmospheres, his catalogue is thicker than molasses. If you’re like me, you’ll start with the achingly dark ambience of “Tears” (by accident, via Don’t Die Wondering), then backward to the hypnotic I Just Love You EP on Terrain Ahead and the most recent For U single. That one, according to Pachenco, isn’t an actual release. It’s a gift for a girl. But if all the care and emotion in the world brought him to that place, the chilled and minimal beauty of it, it’s worth everyone’s attention. Pachenco’s best songs, after all, are his most intimate: The sinister syntax of witch house morphed into a more harmonic, moon-hued melancholy, all of it whispering directly in your ear. This is music made for basements and bedrooms. For crying and hating and falling in love, somewhere in the darkness of Porto, at the mouth of a cool, docile river.

Find IVVVO’s latest tracks and remixes — including a just-released collab with Palmistry — on Soundcloud and Bandcamp, and download several of his EPs directly from his website.

Change and love by IVVVO

for u by IVVVO

Please by IVVVO

Tonight will be a brief debrief. A sort of debrief-to-go, if you will. This debrief will be ideal for reading on a subway ride of about three stops, or a bus ride of two. Read this as you’re walking down the stairs, or if you have wireless internet, read it in the bathroom. Alright. Let’s debrief.

Politics: I should probably break this politics section down into subsections because of the amount of stories that unfolded this week. I’m not going to though because this is a quick read. Here’s what happened in the political sphere: Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed, President Obama announced that the Iraq war is over and that troops will be home by December 31, and presidential hopeful, Herman Cain, continued to divulge priceless tips that, even if he is not elected president, should really be considered. Recently, Cain explained that he thinks an electric fence should be built along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration. Certainly a brilliant idea, Cain later said, “That’s a joke. I’ve also said America needs to get a sense of humor.” Does standup comedian Herman Cain have a chance at becoming president? (Definitely not.) You decide.

Music: Not much happened in the music world this week, nothing worth recapping at least. One thing was that I gave a presentation on the similarities between Jazz, Hip Hop, and 19th Century German music. That happened. I would link you to the power point, but that seems a bit much. Another thing that happened, was the release of this commercial for Drake’s upcoming sophomore effort, Take Care.

Now, I like Drake. He seems like a cool guy. You wouldn’t get that opinion from this ad, however. “750 Million Views On YouTube” “Over 3 Million Twitter Followers”; I didn’t realize amount of Twitter followers was grounds to buy an album.

Personal Triumph: This is a follow-up to last week’s harrowing tale of my experiences in the post office and how my brown jeans – my favorite brown jeans – were lost in the mail. Well, like the Iraq war, this plight has come to an end; my jeans have been recovered. I’m wearing them right now, in fact.

The entire contents of my package – my brown jeans, a book, and a pair of socks – finally was recovered after several trips to the Post Office, in fact. In fact, you should never have anything sent to the Stuytown Post Office. Ever. Just a piece of advice. Now have a good week, Reader.

Damaged 5-Panel Cap ($36)

Yesterday I took my girlfriend to eat at this place where Greenpoint Coffee House used to be and we got stabbed in the guts with diarrhea pangs before we had even made it the three blocks back to my apartment. I let her use the bathroom first but her promises that she would be quick were a lie and I had to poop in a grocery bag that I held between my legs in the kitchen. It was a surprisingly neat procedure and feces didn’t spray all over the place like a cartoon. It did smell pretty awful though. Sometimes you can forget how much shitting into water can mask the stench of what your insides smell like. Christ.

So I placed my crapsack on the fire escape and washed my hands. When she came out I admitted that I’d shit in a bag. She went over to the fire escape to see and as she did so I held her mouth shut with my hand so that she would have no option but to breathe through her nose, fully absorbing the horror that had once dwelled inside me. She got pretty violent after that.

One thing you don’t realize about blumpkins until you get one is that the real humiliation isn’t that the lady is sucking your dick while you’re on the toilet but that she can only breathe through her nose while her face is right next to the toilet.

I had one of those glass encased showers at an old apartment and I liked to fart in the shower with a different girlfriend and she would scream and claw at the glass walls of the shower. I referred to this as my concentration camp trick.

Why is it such a wonderful thing to make your significant other smell your shit? I’m not some sort of shitophile, I think I’m just a bully. I guess this is just a fun form of abuse that doesn’t leave a mark for me. I guess I’m just damaged.

Anyway this hat is a five panel cap that will fit anybody.

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725
—
Мишка LA
1547 Echo Park Ave
Los Angeles, CA
213-536-4234

I’ll say right off the bat that I’m a fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Call me a wuss, but the first one scared the hell out of me. The second one had it’s moments, but like Crook, I felt pretty bored by the whole silly thing. Immediately after 2 was released, Paramount Pictures announced that there would be a third installment. “Meh,” I thought. More slamming of doors and people standing next to bed for hours? No thanks. BUT then the filmmakers behind Catfish signed on to direct and I was immediately interested again.

I’m still on the fence whether Catfish was bullshit or a 100% non-fictional documentary – either way I knew filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost would bring something new to the Paranormal table. It helps that these two guys actually know how to make a fucking movie. They prove this with 3, the most cinematic of the trilogy. They totally deliver a new kind of visual shock that the first two Paranormals were lacking. The tired found footage format is adhered to (this time on VHS), but Schulman and Joost bring a fresh approach. In short, they go big. The effect isn’t as scary as the first or even the second film, but it is way more fun.

3 is set in 1988 and shows us some of the mythology laid in the second film – how Katie and Kristi’s family became cursed in the first place. It delves into the coven their grandmother belonged to and the deal the old woman made with the demon. Young Kristi is the only one who can see the demon, who she affectionately treats as her imaginary friend she calls “Toby.” Gradually, suspense and paranoia build up through little “activities” until the full-blown, climactic horror show.

While not as scary as the first two, the fact that 3 focuses on two children makes it more shocking. Who gives a shit if annoying adults get the willies? But when two little girls are the target, a new urgency is brought to the table. Schulman and Joost thought up some pretty clever shots – a camera attached to an oscillating fan provides way more suspense than a stationary shot. Some of the best shocks come with that oscillating fan, including my favorite: the old ghost under the sheet trick.

Whether they scare you or not, seeing Paranormal Activity is a communal experience and this one is no different. I HATE packed theaters full of noisy teenage pricks, hence my tendency to favor matinees and torrents, but PA is the exception. I wouldn’t want to see it any other way. A lot of the teenagers in the crowd weren’t able to grasp that it took place in 1988 – they thought a Lite-Brite was a laptop and when the mother was using an old school cordless phone, a teen girl next to me goes “Pssshhh, old ass cellie.” Kids are so cute sometimes!

PA3 may be the least scary of them all, but it’s the most fun and cinematic. It has its share of tired scares (creaking doors, standing next to the bed for hours) but it brings so much more to the franchise. The entire third act is like being in one of those seasonal haunted houses (ala Nightmares Fear Factory) where you’re in a constant state of heightened paranoia. Even if you hated the second I think you’ll enjoy PA3. I’m sure Paramount will be announcing a 4th installment sometime next week.

Let us now continue our discourse on delicious fall recipes. With only two weeks of apple picking remaining (as I was greaciously informed by Time Out New York) it’s imperative that you make this recipe as soon as possible. Or you could always just go to the store and get some apples there, in which case you can wait a while on this dish. Either/or, really.

With that, let me begin with an anecdote regarding the last time I prepared this dish. It was but two weeks ago I went apple picking, intending to gather apples for this very recipe. It was nice. I wore an orange sweater; it was festive. In order to obtain certain types of apples that grew farther out in the orchard, the farm provided a shuttle. Essentially: a free tractor ride. It was great. I like tractors a lot, and there was a dog on board. What was less than great, was the double date happening next to me on the tractor. Now, I am a huge proponent of not only double dates, but PDA too; unfortunately, this was something else all together. This was bizarre; a bizarre sight, indeed. The two female participants of the double date appeared to be about sixteen in age, while the men, on the other hand, were twelve. Straight up, they looked twelve years old. (I know, in actuality they were all the same age, and it’s the whole thing about how girls mature faster than guys, yada, yada, whatever.) And so, this just goes to show you that everybody like apples.

Now, onto the recipe. This will be the main course in our autumnal meal, falling in between The Salted S’more and an appetizer dish that we will look at in a few weeks. Here’s what you’re going to need:

• apple cider
• 1 apple, peeled, cored, cut into 1/4–inch–thick slices
• 3 fresh thyme sprigs plus some chopped fresh thyme
• 8 3/4–inch–thick lamb rib chops
• vegetable oil
• aged balsamic vinegar
• butter
• chopped fresh oregano
• chopped fresh rosemary
• salt
• pepper

Additionally, you may use dry thyme instead of fresh, because sometimes you just can’t buy fresh thyme. Once the apples are tender, strain the juices into a bowl or container, and keep them and the apples separate. The apples can only take so much inbreeding. But really: keep them separate and do not discard the juices.

Now, sprinkle the lamb chops with pepper and salt (why does the salt always come first in that pairing? Let’s give pepper a moment in the spotlight) and heat the veggie oil, about a tablespoon worth, in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the lamb and cook until desired doneness. Remember, Reader, you must cook the chops on both sides.

Lamb Chops can be expensive, I know, and while they are a rather essential part of The Apple Lamp Chops dish, you may substitute them for pork chops, if necessary.

Once cooked, place the chops on a serving platter, pour the drippings from the pan onto the meat, and then place the pan on the stove over a medium-high heat. Now comes the best part. Add the apple cider that we used before, that you so humanitarianly separated from the apples, and boil down to 1/4 cup. This should take about two minutes. Next, remove the pan from the stove and add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a tablespoon of butter, the chopped thyme, oregano, and rosemary, and scrape up any browned bits left in the pan.

This is the perfect meal to make for that special someone, as I’m sure my twelve year-old fellow tractor riders did. Or they at least got one of their mothers to make it for them. No disrespect to mothers, of course; that’s how I learned to make this recipe. And though you may not realize it yet, Reader, this is just a small part of the ultimate autumnal romantic evening meal. It’s going to really be something. Now go get yourself a cup of cider, make a grocery list, and get ready to really impress somebody with your cooking skills.

Ryan Lampshear is the newest member to the Keep Watch Tattoo club. In addition to getting our bloodshot eyeball on his arm, Ryan also opted to twist things up a bit and also tattoo the mouth underbrim from our Keep Watch new eras on his shoulder. Ryan is slowly but surely working towards a full sleeve and who knows? Maybe some more Мишка graphics make it on there…

I don’t know how this is real. This large, tattooed, chain-wearing man is terrified of this puppy. Like, running away, crying terrified. And it’s incredibly funny when he first runs away, but as the video goes on it’s clear that something happened during his childhood to make him fear animals (or maybe just puppies, I don’t know). That part’s a bummer, because I want to laugh at this absurd video that is essentially a live-action version of a handful of old cartoons that made fun of giant, muscle-y men being afraid of small, innocent puppies. I am laughing at it, actually, but also being mindful and responsible (or something). His boy in the blue hoodie is looking at him, thinking, “Dude, really?” And he kind of has a point: Dude, really?

Cannabis is heating the fuck up right now. And, from what homies back East, and down South have been telling me, there is not a lot of news coverage exposing what Obama’s “non-interfering” federal government has been up to (please fill me in in the comments if you have any links or leads on existing stories). Over the course of roughly 2 weeks a group of meddling individuals in a number of government branches have managed to launch a coordinated effort to disrupt California’s medical cannabis industry, and the supply chain of safe and affordable medicine for those with a very real medical need.

The motives are still unclear, but two things are certain: this is a reminder/wake up call of how real this business is, and Obama has lost the support of California’s cannabis industry and has instead garnered its disdain. For those of us abiding by the state’s laws, creating jobs, paying taxes, strengthening communities, and opting out of a corrupt system of labor this rash of recent federal actions is a slap in the face. Remember Obama’s claim that his administration wouldn’t interfere? Well, here’s a summary of a few of the recent events that have taken place under his administration, and which have not garnered even a peep from Barack Obama the nation’s first black president, and an admitted cannabis smoker:

IRS says cannabis businesses can’t deduct business expenses because they are illegal businesses. Thus people owe back-taxes, and they’re claiming that Harborside owes $2 million.

ATF says cannabis patients can’t buy new firearms and have to hand over existing firearms because cannabis patients are addicts.

DEA has started raiding a number of the most legitimate, law abiding, tax-paying, regulation-conforming dispensaries (including my main employer). Word in the industry is that it’s likely smash and grab cash-thieving.

California DAs are grasping for straws and threatening bystanders. Northern California DA Melinda Haag is going after land owners who rent to dispensaries, and sent letters threatening to seize properties if landlords don’t evict cannabis tenants.

Federal officials claim that they are “cleaning up” but this is a total farse. In their 30 year war on drugs the black market has grown. In the 15 years of California’s medical cannabis program we have succeeded in creating the only solution to the black market; a legal market that is safe; a legal market that provides jobs; a legal market that doesn’t foster the growth of illicit drug cartels; a legal market that supports the values of those who founded this nation in opposition to a tyrannical and exploitative ruling class.

My main employer of late was one of those shut down in recent DEA raids. The federal government took my job away. But they’re still calling for me to pay my credit card bills, and pay my student loans. I’m on the streets if it wasn’t for the grace of friends. What am I supposed to do? I know what I feel like doing, but I’d never be foolish enough to document it anywhere. I don’t know how you’re feeling but I hope it involves outrage. The folks out here in California fighting for their rights are fighting for the rights of everyone in this nation.

Don’t get mad, don’t get even, don’t get fed up. Start strategizing, and start organizing, and wait for the call. I refuse to abide this, and I intend to do something. In fact, I’ve already begun. Head over to HR2306 and read up, because that bill is going to be a major part of organizing people across the country. Legit though, this is some real life Star Wars type of shit. There is an evil oppressor at work, and there is a group of rebels who have been maintaining a resistance for decades. This is real as fuck, this is about freedom, this is life or death, this really is the future of our people. I know you can’t see it from the outside, but the cannabis/hemp industry is going to play a large role in the re-casting of our nation. It’s putting power and money back into the hands of the working class, and it’s putting sustenance back into communities. If you ever bought or sold weed then you are part of the resistance. Get ready to rise the fuck up.

It’s been an incredible past couple of days here in New York and all throughout the cosmos. This past Monday, my collaboration EP with DJ Shiftee — Space Ace — dropped worldwide on Rad Summer Records. To celebrate, we linked up with DJ Subset, fellow Dubspotter and bass fiend, and mashed it up last Saturday at Webster Hall basement as part of his new bass music weekly party, BASSment Saturdays. It was our Space Ace EP release party, so of course we had to import from Philly our good friend and Rad Summer co-founder, Mr. Flufftronix himself. I had an amazing time – everyone killed it, and it’s awesome to see kids going nuts to smooth cuts mixed in with heavy as hell bass weight jams.

You can can pick up the 3-track EP at Beatport, iTunes, Amazon, Juno, etc. We’re currently #10 on this week’s Beatport top dubstep releases – help us climb to the top!

PREVIEW: Rx & Shiftee – Space Ace (OUT NOW on Rad Summer) by Rad Summer