The Village Idiots Are Winning

By now you should be three days into your degustation of James Holden‘s DJ-Kicks, which has been available to own since Monday on CD, mp3 and accompanying double vinyl sampler (complete with exclusive Holden remix of Mogwai and previously unreleased Luke Abbott goodies too, in the form of new album track ‘Soft Attacks’ and that Holden-beloved remix of MIT’s ‘Rauch’) from all good record stores, on- and offline. Not forgetting of course bonus new Holden single ‘Triangle Folds’, which also comes in 12″ vinyl and twin-mp3 form. As if that wasn’t enough Holden action for one week, that mammoth world tour of Mr Holden also kicked off last weekend, beginning with Portugal and Belgium; Amsterdam, Cork and Verona lie on the agenda for the weekend ahead: see James’s Myspace for the full list of dates.

Of course, we couldn’t leave out our hometown of London, which takes its turn for a Holden workout on 11th June when the conveniently located Village Underground warehouse space plays host to man of the hour James Holden, previous DJ-Kicks incumbent and Four Tet man Kieran Hebden and our own DJ’s DJ Avus. All of which promises to be a bit of an End reunion, since the same deadly DJ trio made up our team of loyal residents during the days of our much-missed End residency, and so much more than that besides, as this party comes about as close to “essential” as the music-for-dancing-to scene gets. I’d hate you to miss out – so make sure that you don’t by securing your advance tickets now from Resident Advisor or Ticketweb today (check who else is going here first, if you must). It also coincides with the birthday celebrations of a certain Rave Hobbit, so brace yourselves…

Until then, all that remains is for you and your new musical-best-friend to become better acquainted, as the reviews continue to trickle in. The all-important Pitchfork on the whole seemed to get it, awarding it an oddly-precise 7.7 out of 10 and acting very much in the spirit of James’ inspirational sleevenotes to send out an encouraging message to: “Approach Holden’s mix with an open mind, and you might reconsider what’s danceable”. A quick interview with Ireland’s Bodytonic also provided an opportune platform for James’ uncharacteristic optimism, bestowing plentiful praise on the UK and “this hybridisation of dance and not-dance, the approach non-scene people have to making music that you could dance to is so much less conservative than people within the scene normally manage”. Donning my best and most zany weatherforecaster’s jumper (wait till you see it, Michael Page!), I can say that the outlook round these parts is overwhelmingly positive, whatever other people might tell you…

As for that little psychedelic amuse bouche from the Holden hard drive ‘Triangle Folds’: whether you see it as “21st Century kraut gorgeousness” (Ewan Pearson), “liberating stoner-techno” (Tomas Andersson) or “the best track I’ve heard this year” (Agoria), all it seems to have done is whetted the world’s appetite for a whole album’s worth of more-where-that-came-from. And that will indeed be James’ next task, but first there is the small matter of a world tour to get out of the way. Your patience would be appreciated.

NOTE TO RSS FANS: In case you were wondering where I have been these past couple of weeks, all blogging activity had to be temporarily suspended whilst we migrated from Blogger to WordPress. Which shouldn’t make a lot of difference to you, unless you were subscribed via the old RSS feed, which has ceased to function as of today. So be sure to update your feed readers with our brand spanking new RSS feed here: I don’t want to lose you now!