The nouvelle swagger and cutthroat blogger by hook and dagger.

It's not like I know them or anything. Heck, I didn't even talk to them. Nice to have a beer for free, though, I must say. You' d imagine that out of a crowd of, let's say, 800-1000 yelping fans, more than 100 would have bothered to walk next-door to have a brew with the band when invited over the mic. I guess that's the beauty of the increasingly hype Montreal music scene: the interested and informed party has diplomatic access to whomever they so choose to approach. Musings aside, I got to have a drink at the table of the Rapture this past week, after a wonderful live showing that re-energized my faith in the NYC contingent. Perhaps I'll thank good sense they didn't play too much of the stuff from the new album, but you never know: the new cuts were better live than on the pompously produced album. I'm such a sucker for DFA.......

Speaking of which, replacement DFA posterboys, the UK's Hot Chip slayed it live on Sunday. It was an absolutely unreal testiment to the achievable latitude of modern music, crammed with all the fittings: synth, organic, genre and otherwise. The phrase "Boom Bippity" comes to the edge of my tongue. Jam band sensibilities have finally invaded indie-electronica, thank fuck. By the way, Yes, it's way crazier live (even if the sound at Sala Rossa is atrocious and DJ IpodOnRandom played another nose-dive world-beat set. Who'd o' thunk it!?).

Furthermore, get your taste of the next oscillation of that sound from Fugiya and Miyagi. For more reasons I wish I still lived in England, witness the dukeness: The Filthy Dukes.

Lets's see here, what else is British and outrageously hot right now? Fuckin' Simian Mobile Disco, that's what.

Peace, Jack Oatmon