Wednesday 15 August 2012

Twelve Inches of Pleasure #3 - !!!



!!! - Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story) [Warp Records 2003] - Cat# WAP163

Okay let's deal with the elephant in the room first shall we? !!! is pronounced Chk Chk Chk, or any other three repetitive sounds. They even slap a sticker on the front of their records to explain this. Not since those long ago nutty days of Prince changing his name to squiggle have we had such pretentiousness with a band name. The difference here though is that !!! are fucking aces, whereas Prince was already well on his way down towards the Mormon internet only triple album dumpster where he now resides.

Phew! Anyway, Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story) (did I already use the word pretentious?), is a euphoric slab of dance/funk/punk excellence. It kicks off like it's in the middle of another song before settling down into a wonderfully dirty groove. This is one of those journey records that Funkadelic, Can or early post Barrett Floyd used to make, except there's no denying what era this 12" is from. This is most definitely post house and subsequently is packed full of hands in the air moments. The best of which starts with the song being stripped back to just drums around the three and a half minute mark, then they pile on extra drums followed by a throbbing pulsing bass, next up come the dry chiming guitar chords, still building, constantly building upwards, then the guitar gets more frantic and finally just when it feels like everything that's happened before is going to collapse, comes the triumphant bored-slacker barked vocal "people always ask me, what's so fucking great about dancing?''. It's a killer moment that the song never really manages to top. 

This is one of my favourite ever singles, it's prog for the dance generation, it's uplifting without being braindead, but best of all it works on a dance floor. It's one of those tracks that everyone should play before leaving home on a Saturday night. Honestly.






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