Thursday, September 29, 2011

Hess Is More

Disco is everywhere these days, almost as omnipresent as Animal Collective wannabes and I can’t say either trend is a good thing. I’d like to have back the half hour I spent listening to the new Toro Y Moi EP (disco), for instance, and also the five minutes it took me to decide that Gauntlet Hair was as clunkily meaningless as their name (AC). However, exceptions prove the rule, as they say…and I’m kind of liking the very disco/soul/new wave-ish Hess is More album, Creation Keeps the Devil Away (coming 10/11 on Nublu Records). Mikkel Hess is a Danish composer who has done a lot of incidental music for film, theater and dance. In Hess is More he works with composer/producer Rasmus Bille Bahncke, also a Dane, also entrenched in the film industry.

The Village Voice calls the record, “an expansive feast, like Arthur Russell dragged through the blippy poptronica '00s”, which is actually pretty dead-on. They also become somewhat obsessed with early single “Burn,” and interview Hess for the backstory. You can read about it (and download the song)here.

My favorite, though, the title track, “Creation Keeps the Devil Away”
Creation Keeps The Devil Away by Hess Is More

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