DFA Party Preview

DFA Party Preview

19 August, 2009
by: Rose

This Saturday Cargo hosts a party for dance punk demigods, DFA Records: my favourite label. Headlining will be Shit Robot, with support from Mock & Toof, Jacques Renault and Justin Miller.

DFA was conceived in New York in 2001 in a three-way musical love session between UNKLE’s Tim Goldsworthy, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and event production mogul Jonathan Galkin. Together they went on to build one the most influential record labels of the decade, signing artists such as  LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair, and The Juan Maclean. The most triumphant moment in the label's history was perhaps the production of The Rapture's seminal debut LP, Echoes, with its alchemical blend of indie guitars, bass-lead riffs and synthetic dance music. 

At the Cargo party Shit Robot, aka Marcus Lambkin, will be sure to please with his signature acid house and electro. But I'm most excited about Jacques Renault, whose track 'Bad Skinned' is one of the funkiest little brutes I've heard in a long time. The sexy-named, cute-faced Renault sounds like he pisses disco he's so in tune with the genre.

I shall also be keeping ear out for the notorious DFA remixes, crafted by the label's production team. They have a knack of picking out the best element of a track– a squelchy bass or soaring riff – stripping away the rest, and repackaging it as dance anthem. Their reworks of Le Tigre's 'Deceptacon', and M.I.A's 'Paper Planes' always fill the dance floor.

If the post-punk movement took punk and laced it with melody, funk and hooks, then DFA took a staid indie scene and breathed electronic production, prominent bass-lines, and cowbells into it. DFA is a dance label in the purest sense of the word, so get dancing.

Rose