Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Various

DFA Recordings

Label: DFA Records Release Date: 04/11/2004

7031
md'cruz by Matt D'Cruz November 7th, 2004

The most effortlessly fashionable compilation to be released this year? Probably. The DFA are James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy, the production duo behind two of the greatest singles of the past few years – The Rapture’s House Of Jealous Lovers and LCD Soundsystem’s Losing My Edge.

Sadly, neither record appears on this release, which spans three CDs and pretty much the whole of the DFA roster, but considering the wealth of talent on show elsewhere, it barely matters. The Rapture appear twice – new song Alabama Sunshine is a typically joyous and shambolic mess, with Luke Jenner sharpening his trademark serrated yelp to a precise point. Elsewhere, a DFA edit of Sister Saviour dispenses with the vocals altogether and adds a looser, more dancefloor-friendly edge to its synthentic bounce.

Even better are the offerings from LCD Soundsystem, Murphy’s own project. Yeah trumps even the mighty Losing My Edge. It appears here in two forms – a Pretentious Mix which drifts through nine minutes of proggy, melodic house before ending in a clatter of percussion, and the Crass Mix, in which Murphy does his Mark E Smith thing over standard indie-dance for three minutes before suddenly morphing into a huge acid techno beast. It sounds incredible.

The DFA’s genius is that they’ve successfully positioned themselves at the exact midpoint between the 80s post-punk revival and the microhouse/electro axis where much of the best dance music is being made these days. So while most of the tracks borrow ably from both (the DFA’s percussive reworking of Liquid Liquid’s Bellhead for example), it also means that the taut guitars of J.O.Y’s Sunplus sit perfectly alongside The Juan MacLean’s immaculate click-house on I Robot.

Best of all, however, is the third CD, a continuous mix of DFA classics past and present – most of this stuff works far better thrown together than in isolation, which is possibly why even the indiest stuff here feels as much like dance music as rock music. And the final, climactic collision between Yeah and Beat Collection is nothing short of astonishing.

  • 8
    Matt D'Cruz's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing



Left-arrow

28 Costumes

The Fake Death Experience

Mobback
7026
8487

Hell Is For Heroes

Transmit Disrupt

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025

  • 106149
  • news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145

    news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143
  • news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141

    news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139
  • Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138

    Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137
  • Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
MORE


    news


    Can You Help?

  • 105927
  • review


    Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks

  • 26283

    feature


    DiS is 6: Our 66, the top six

  • 95297
  • DiSband


    DiSband #7: Viva Brother

  • 77972

    Playlist


    15 Years of DiS in 15 Videos (Vevo Playlist)

  • 101593
  • Column


    Drowned In Sound's 40 Favourite Songs of 2014

  • 98608

    news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143
  • Column


    Lost Albums 2000-2015

  • 101481
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND