Animal.Calls

Dudes are feeling real fresh from their split LP with Tusco Terror on Ecstatic Peace

Pure tape rip, real dreamy stuff.

Ringer carries that minimal pulse over into Four Tet, and while Kieran’s trademark recuttings of jazz breaks may be less in evidence, his feel for harmony and melody is, as always, unmistakable.

The album’s touchstone seems to be OutKast’s breakthrough 2003 hit “Hey Ya!” whose jungle-like double-time beat propels six of Odd Couple’s 13 tracks, including current single “Run,” whose strobey video was apparently sent back for recuts by MTV Europe for being a little too seizure-y. This double-time beat fascinates Danger Mouse, and gave us some of the more awkward tracks on 2006’s St. Elsewhere (see “Go Go Gadget Gospel”). It’s kind of too bad, because they seem to be much more comfortable when they chill out a little.

It’s understandable that nothing on here would have the impact of “Crazy,” a once-in-a-lifetime song whose wistful strangeness still sounds as hauntingly beautiful as the first day I heard it. But there’s also nothing on Odd Couple as hypnotic as “Who Cares” or as compelling as “Simley Faces,” St. Elsewhere’s next-best tracks, both clever and melancholy reimaginings of classic soul. It’s as if they reacted to the success of “Crazy” by refusing to write a song you could even sing along to, and that’s too bad.

“Spaceheater / Perfect Interior” collects the first two Goslings EPs, released in 2003 and 2004 on the Asaurus label. This nine-track collection is a perfect introduction to The Goslings’ world of crushing static, meditative sub-bass thunder, shoegazer-style vocals and spooky field recordings. The thirteen-minute opening track “In May” heads immediately into skull crushing territory, with a rumbling static drone that is sure to tear your spine in half. The dense rumbling gives way to the more melodic bliss-out of “Statuette,” an evil twin of a Windy & Carl song that fades into a boggy field recording of crickets and moving water. If I were to augment the soundtrack to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, “Statuette” would accompany the scene of the floating, plastic-wrapped body.From the epic glacial heights of “In May” to the murky depths of “Celestine,” the one constant throughout is that delicious deep drone. And The Goslings drone out with the best of them.

The party holds strong into the second half, where the comedown always muddles the songwriting a little. Surprise: Antony’s dramatic ululations return to rescue the trawling sonics. Where once it was hard to decide whether he was the problem or merely his tastes, it’s now fun to see Hegarty dropping anchor when Butler’s ambitions get too cumbersome and his slow ones sound out of breath. And when these two guys meet each perfectly—as on the projected summer hit “Blind,” a mélange of Primal Scream’s “Swastika Eyes” and Blur’s “Girls and Boys”—they really do climb to the mythic heights of Hercules’ heroic namesake.

opening the album with a dark ritual of dueling reeds and buzzing drones, things than erupt into some seriously burning psych raga excursion built from totally heavy, jamming, acoustic guitar licks, eastern grooving hand percussion, stoned backwards or fuzzed-out electric guitar splatters, and subtle creaky drones. The vocals are nearly unintelligible but swirl beautifully through most songs like floating smokey ripples.

Jim will switch you on in the morning, move you on the dance-floor and take you down in the small hours. It’s a bold, promiscuously diverse album, mixing up gospel grooves, sweetly sung and fiercely passionate soul, delicately moving ballads, thumping early R & B, synthed-up disco, and even a touch of ‘hillbilly funk’.

That time of discovery – and of course the era in which Gonzalez was a teenager – greatly impacted the making of “Saturdays = Youth.” “On this record I wanted to have the feeling of a teenager mixed with this period of the Eighties,” Gonzalez explains.

If the doomy synthetic romance of his earlier work hinted at a fetish for Eighties goth staples such as Sisters of Mercy and The Cure, this album’s chiming astro-pop finds Gonzalez taking a stroll on the sunnier side of the decade. Main influences for the album are English bands such as Tears For Fears and Cocteau Twins, as well as classic John Hughes teen movies such as “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles” (The red-haired Molly Ringwald look-alike on the cover is no mistake).

To realize his vision, Gonzalez enlisted the help of producers Ken Thomas and Ewan Pearson. Thomas, known for his work with Sigur Ros, Sugarcubes, Cocteau Twins, Suede and Clinic cut his teeth on outré acts such as Psychic TV and Alien Sex Fiend more than 20 years ago. Berlin-based British dance producer Ewan Pearson, who has worked with Tracey Thorn, The Rapture, and Ladytron, came on board to give this album its smooth, modern edge.

The result is “Saturdays = Youth,” M83’s most explicit celebration yet of how it feels to be dazed, confused and 15 years old. You can hear it on the album’s first single “Graveyard Girl” – in which Gonzalez and guest vocalist Morgan Kibby (of LA-based band The Romanovs) explore the innermost thoughts of a young goth girl; “The cemetery is my home, I want to be a part of it, invisible even to the night…I’m 15 years old and I feel it’s already too late to live. Don’t you?”

Man Man’s power isn’t derived from the genres they stumble across, or the maniac light in their eyes, or the sweat pooling in their beards. It’s the unbearable sadness in their marrow and how they transform it, like the existentially distressed but heroically steadfast men men they are, into a terrible and lionhearted joy.

In the two years since the release of Tanglewood Numbers, another phrase from “There Is a Place” seems to be more appropriate: “I took a hammer to it all.”

Will Oldham, Ben Gibbard and Eric Pollard lend their backing vocals throughout the album.