Youth, Speed, Trouble, Cigarettes!

Week 2 of Music to get you through the week.

French electronic duo - Cassius.

Hey guys. How was your week?

Mine was decent. I worked on Mozhaets a bit, went to some parties, met some new people. Things were great. I missed you though. :)

Glad to see you're back for your new dose of music. I've picked out some really great tracks this time, I'm sure you'll like at least one of them.

The featured artist this week is Cassius. Wikipedia tells me they're from France, which is cool. Something even cooler is that they've been active exactly as long as I've been alive. So.. yeah, cool.

The absolute best thing to me about Cassius though, is how I discovered them, and what they did to my life.

It was 1996. Little K was sitting in front of the TV. As usual. Problem with little K's TV was that we didn't have cable, or rabbit ears, so I got exactly four stations. One was CBC, one was CTV, third was Global, and last was TVO. Now TVO is a small, public broadcasting kinda thing for Ontario, much like PBS. And every Sunday, the channel would switch to TFO - it's french equivalent.

This meant that every Sunday, little K was exposed to all sorts of french culture. Which he found mostly strange. Amidst the gameshows, and crappy sitcoms,  there was a top 40 music charts show that gave me all sorts of weird glimpses into french music. One music video stands out in my brain. And it was this one: Link

Watch that. There's this white man in a red comic-villain costume, that creeped the shit out of me as a kid, and his image was burned into my nightmares for years... but that's beside the point.

This was my first ever exposure to electronic/techno music. It paved the way to a lingering obsession, and without me knowing it, made me who I am today. So <this> is all Cassius' fault.

One last thing before we start - since I realize not everyone has a hype machine account, Iw'm going to include youtube links where I can.

And so, with the introduction out of the way, lemme throw you your seven.

1. Cassius - Youth, Speed, Trouble, Cigarettes (Don Diablo Remix) - Youtube - I couldn't find a HM of the original Cassius song, so I'm not including it as one of the seven, (you can rock out to the youtube clip though if you want) so instead, here's a more recent track that I can't get over.

2. The Illuminoids - Teenage Electric Lobotomy (MGMT vs. Justice vs. The Ramones)-The Illuminoids Long title n'est pas? Well when Justice is involved with a remix, you know it's going to be good, and the fact that it's an MGMT song guarantees win.

3. The Bloody Beetroots - Warp 1.9 - Youtube - I've recently been listening to a lot of the BBs and they're a very hard band to quantify. On their album Romborama tracks will go from soft to hard without any warning. This is an excellent example of the latter.

4. Sebastian - H.A.L - Youtube - My roommate introduced me to Dubstep with this song. Turn up the bass before you listen ;)

5. KiD CuDi ft. KanYe West & Common - Make Her Say (Sammy Bananas Remix) - Youtube - Now, I was never a huge fan of the original of this track of KiD CuDi's album Man on the Moond: The End of Day. It had some decent scratching, but otherwise felt flat. Adding a very "Kanye-ish" synth line and a heavier beat won me over.

6. Uffie - Hot Chick (Mr. Oizo Unreleased Rework) - Now, along with Cassius, another DJ that was featured on this TV show was Mr. Oizo (pronounced oiseaux - french word for bird) He's amazing, and you should check out his original work. He's been around for a long time too, but he's most recently famous for being the first person in history to do something with an Uffie song to make it actually vaguely listenable. For something with a little more charm, check out his cute mascot in this song)

7. Jay-Z Ft. Mr Hudson - Young Forever - Youtube - Now, this is by no means an obscure song, The original's been in everything from Napoleon Dynamite to the O.C., and fuck - it's Jay-Z. But after such an amped up handful of songs, I wanted to end this week's list with something a little more calm.

And I hope calm is cool, because next week we're going to check out my softer side. More synth, less bass. See you then!

And may the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.

-K

P.S. For more tracks, follow me on twitter.