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I mean, sure, I know what it
is, technically: it's a dance record. That's where you'll find it filed,
and inside of a few months there will have been several-several remixes
of its key tracks, some of them issued as 12"s that burn up dance
floors, maybe. Won't they? I don't know; I don't dance any more, so I
can't be sure, but when last I tripped the light fantastic we didn't
go in much for the slow stuff. There were the occasional flood-your-system-with-anticipatory-despair
numbers, whose energies usually progressed through several rampings-up
over the course of five or more minutes; by the end, one felt comfortable
thinking of dread as an illusion in which one indulged for its own sweet
sake, a sort of consciously courted emotional drug. Slow songs played
in our homes the next morning, not The Night Of. But here's Last
Exit,
and it hasn't got the stomach to be coy about things: yes, its rhythms,
while downtempo, make your head nod, and yes, it sports an unmistakeably
club-drenched sheen. But when I imagine myself as part of a crowd moving
our bodies to these remarkable songs, I feel compelled to ask: is there
a whole subgenre of dance music that's sad, and wistful, and practically
rotting with the sweet stench of ache and hope that wears itself out
within the span of time it takes to find expression? |
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LPTJ
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