"Track 5", a previously unreleased single meant for "The Days of Mars" album, but ultimately deemed out of place on the record, begins with the slow reveal of a repeating electronic ring atop a rising, falling, sine-curving synth. With each additional layer—a piercing, urgent synthesizer; a deep, continuous, ever-expanding rumble; the sound of a guitar, awash in reverb—the atmosphere thickens. It’s both restless and placid, anxious and tranquil. Just over ten minutes in length, the track closes with a chorus of high-pitched synths that fade to a sparse, darkened end. This 12-inch, very likely Gonzalez and Russom’s last, also features a remix from Âme, comprised of Germany’s Kristian Beyer and Frank Wiedemann. The house duo wholly transforms the A-side into a track so unrecognizable it seems brand new, taking it far from the introspective dreamworld to a dance party in the sweaty, blissed-out, wee hours of the morning.

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Eric Broucek was the ur-engineer of the most fertile era of DFA Studios, from about 2003 to 2008 (no one knows anything precisely about that time, as it's all lost in the fog of chaos). His hand was on all of the remixes, LPs, dance 12s. He was there in that over-designed gear dungeon almost every day, recording, mixing, struggling to not roll his eyes at Tim and me. And somewhere in that fog, he quietly dropped limited runs of three 12-inch delayed reaction bombs on his own label Stickydisc Recordings_two under the name Babytalk, and one as Watussi with another DFA regular, Morgan Wiley. Back in the day, Eric did not want his music released on DFA. He wanted to forge his own identity, which he did, sending out music that wandered from the DFA path with its uniquely wonky, upended and understated power. His music is so unlike everything else of that era, so profoundly singular, that it still sounds completely out of time. A few years back, I started DJing the tracks again, and saw how the world was still surprised by what Eric had made, and the idea of this compilation was born. So, in the end, Eric, we totally got to release your records anyway. We heart you, man. -James Murphy


Tracklist
1.1BABYTALK - KEEP ON MOVE (ORIGINAL MIX)
1.2BABYTALK - KEEP ON MOVE (SIX-LEG FRIEND MIX)
1.3BABYTALK - CHANCE (ORIGINAL MIX)
1.4BABYTALK - CHANCE (HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR REMIX)
1.5BABYTALK - CHANCE (BABYTALK REMIX)
1.6WATUSSI - IF ALL WE HAD WAS LOVE
1.7WATUSSI - PURPLE MOON
1.8WATUSSI - PURPLE MOON (INSTRUMENTAL)
1.9BABYTALK - ENOUGH

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Dickie Landry’s saxophones have challenged, soothed, and blown minds around the world in his lengthy career as a jazz and avant-garde blower of the highest regard. He was a founding member of the Phillip Glass Ensemble and (according to Wikipedia lore) introduced Paul Simon to zydeco, one of the indigenous sounds of his native southern Louisiana.

Rarely, though, does Dickie’s saxophone make you want to get up and dance like a crazy person.

Such is the effect of “Hang The Rich,” a nugget of slinky, ecstatic punk-funk that was until recently completely lost to the sands of time. Recorded in 1986 (or thereabouts) in New Orleans and featuring vocalist Evelyn Erhard, percussionist Billy Ware, drummer Ricky Sebastian and Dickie himself on saxophones and a Roland Jupiter 4 synthesizer, it’s the kind of song that compels you to move any which way you can, drunk on indignance and the power of satan’s music.

The track came to DFA via LCD Soundsystem’s Korey Richey, who knows Dickie from back home in Louisiana. After a lengthy search, we located the original tapes in a storage locker somewhere in the Southeast and finally were able to get a clean, quality transfer done here at DFA HQ.

From there, we only had one person in mind for a more DJ-friendly edit: Glasgow’s JD Twitch, one half of Optimo and a selector of similarly puckish spirit. Twitch’s ability to contextualize these older, skronkier sounds for a modern dancefloor are in full display on his version, which hits hard and jagged but then opens up into those ineffable rapturous moments.

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You’ve heard Stuart Bogie before because he’s played saxophone, clarinet, and flute on a lot of records. TV On The Radio, Foals, Sharon Van Etten, Beth Orton, Run the Jewels, Antibalas, the list goes on and on and on.

We connected with Stuart during the early clutches of COVID through Korey Richey, DFA Studios engineer and LCD Soundsystem band member.

Stuart had been cooped up in the apartment that he shared with his partner, Karyn, and their family. It was Karyn who suggested a restless Stuart start playing clarinet on Instagram Live every morning, a ritual he kept for 150 straight days. Along the way, he solicited drones and other sounds from his friends as accompaniment.

Korey asked James if he had anything lying around that might fit. Uncharacteristically, James said yes. There was this long, plaintive drone of treated piano made sometime in the 90s that he’d just found. And another similarly droning but slightly darker organ piece made for an installation in the mid-2000s. Stuart played over both in separate sessions, improvising these beautiful, delicate clarinet runs for the sheltered, live-streaming few.

We listened back to the recordings in the office and couldn’t shake how great they were. They felt like a decompression valve, relief from the persistent, creeping apocalypse. They deserved a more meaningful existence than that of a shitty MP3.

So, Stuart came into DFA and recorded them properly. This time Korey ran him through a stack of delay units that stretched and smeared that clarinet into each drone until they were one bewildering whole. Each recording clocked in at roughly twenty minutes - perfect side-long lengths. It all fell into place so naturally.

“Morningside” is the name of the album. Two tracks on two sides. Produced by Korey and James, mixed by James, mastered and cut by Bob. It’s out October 27. You can listen to a few snippets of each side and pre-order the vinyl below. (Since it’s only two “songs,” we aren’t releasing anything officially beforehand.)

A final, but important note: the cover features a detail of a photograph called “The Burial Vault” by the excellent photographer Gregory Crewdson, taken from his recent series “Eveningside.” (The full photograph is featured on a printed insert inside the record package.) A few months earlier, Gregory was finishing what would become “Eveningside” and asked James (a friend) if he might, y’know, have anything lying around. A video was being made about the work and music was needed. James sent these recordings, which evidently sort of stopped Gregory in his tracks. And just like that another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The connection was so natural that Stuart also finally found the title he’d been searching for (until that point, we’d been calling the record simply “Clarinet and Delay.”)

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LIMITED EDITION RUN OF 1500 COPIES

Stretch 'em out and shake off the cobwebs - LCD Soundsystem have returned, in recorded form, from a 5-year hibernation. 'New Body Rhumba' was written and recorded for the new Noah Baumbach film, White Noise, which is an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel. It’s classic LCD, all tight and brash, with a coda headed for the second star from the right and straight on 'till morning.

Single-sided 12'' vinyl, mastered and cut at 45rpm by Bob 'Sparklebear' Weston at Chicago Mastering Service, pressed at MPO in France.

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“What could have been a mere anthology of the label's uniformly excellent 2004 output is, additionally, a meticulously assembled personal narrative. This is a label that balances its musical and commercial aspirations with an earthy, no-bullshit disposition and-- let's say it-- the world's best fucking handclaps.” - Nick Sylvester, Pitchfork, in the heady days of 2004. Behold, Compilation #2. A compendium what are arguably the best prime-era DFA cuts, mostly all recorded and/or remixed at the old DFA Studios on W. 13th Street (with some notable exceptions), released as 12-inches and then compiled onto a 3xCD set for convenience because, at the time, people actually bought CDs more than vinyl. Now, in the spirit of time not really being much of a linear thing anymore, and for our own selfish desire to have this version of Liquid Liquid’s “Bellhead,” produced by the DFA, finally committed to wax, we have reverse engineered this thing back onto vinyl and presented it as a four-record boxed set. We went back and found the master tapes or files for each song - a not insignificant effort given our habit of disorganization. We then rather painstakingly resequenced and remastered it with the guy we trust with such things: Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service. The lacquers Bob cut were plated and pressed at what we believe to be one of the best pressing plants in the country: QRP in Salina, Kansas. We tell you all of this to say: we took this shit pretty seriously. Because we felt like it was important and because we felt like some folks would really appreciate it. It sounds remarkable. It looks great. (Rob Carmichael re-did the original packaging, adding a new photo from DFA OG Tim Saccenti from one of the original parties at W. 13th St.) Of course, we somehow can’t stop ourselves from making labeling errors - Pixeltan’s “That’s the Way I Like It” somehow escaped the center labels on the fourth record. It’s kind of the DFA curse. Has to be!

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