- Artist
- LCD Soundsystem
- Label
- DFA/EMI
- Release date
- 12th March 2006
- Genre
- Indie/electro/dance
Sprinkling some disco into your punk, a bit of rave into your rock, has become commonplace for today's sound - think Franz Ferdinand's white funk-influenced art rock or Klaxons' cataclysmic prog-rave collisions. But while this dancefloor energy has given guitar music the arse-kick it deserved, along with an injection of sex, such output remains, still, white boy rock. Dance music - continuing to suffer a post-house lack of direction - it ain't.
One person striving to take dance music in innovative directions is a 37 year old ex-punk rock drummer and sound engineer - who, ironically, paved the way forward for such acts as mentioned above. As one half of NYC production team DFA, James Murphy was behind turning The Rapture into early definers of that punk-funk sound, most notably on the adrenalin charge of House Of Jealous Lovers. Meanwhile, his own LCD project dropped word-of-mouth electro classic Losing My Edge in 2002 - irresistibly funky, edgy and sardonically piss-taking - before an eponymous debut of intelligent and irreverent Talking Heads via The Fall-influenced house music confirmed Murphy as something of a super-cool pioneer.
Five years on, the release of Sound Of Silver, a record sure to be hailed as Murphy's masterpiece, could not be better timed - into an environment eager to see rock and electronica bended into ever stranger shapes - and cements his position as a visionary. House and electro form its foundations: immaculately programmed beats and lush synths are the core sound and tracks weave cresendoing dancefloor shapes for six to eight minutes long. Murphy then manipulates his punk and rock influences to add just enough sass and sex to his dirty dance music without out ever straying from the pulsing rhythms. What's more, Murphy's underrated, loose vocal style conducts the peaks and troughs of each track (at times conversational, falsetto, grunting and sing-song) like a white punk James Brown.
Sound Of Silver will also disarm detractors who found LCD too wise-ass and pretend-dumb on their previous release. The wit and irony remain but Murphy has now turned towards more serious issues: recent single North American Scum hilariously apes anti-Americanism, Someone Great's Human League via Dooms Night electro pop touchingly addresses a bereavement while Us v Them's lament on scenesters and fame sounds like Bowie collaborating with Moroder. Then, out of the blue, Murphy calls forth the spirit of Lou Reed on beautiful, lounge piano-led album closer New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down - a love letter of regret to his ever more zero-tolerant hometown.
Impervious to faddism, old enough to possess a vast musical knowledge and young at heart enough to innovate, Murphy has morphed his influences to become a true original. What's more, this is arguably the first ever complete album of dance music: thoughtful and thuggish, graceful and dirty, and funky as f**k, Sound Of Silver is solid gold.
