amelie's wavelength

it's 11:58 PM on the 30th of december and i'm posting this now because i want it to be timestamped 2007 and not jan 1 2008. petty? yes. i don't care. this is my blog.

a confession before the list: i started this blog four months ago. i have written 23 posts. half of them are about Justice. i know. i KNOW. i'll do better next year. i promise.

top 10 tracks of 2007 (according to amelie, who has been alive for 21 years and a music writer for 4 months):

10. Klaxons — Atlantis to Interzone
i know nu-rave is dying already. i don't care. this song made me jump on a couch in november. couches were jumped on. i'm including it.

9. Boys Noize — & Down
this came out in like april and i didn't get it for months. then one night in october i got it. brutal. perfect. boys noize is going to be the most important producer of 2008 (you heard it here first, save this comment).

8. The Bloody Beetroots — Cornelius
italians making bloghouse louder than the french. respect. RESPECT.

7. Daft Punk — Alive 2007 (whole album)
i know it's a live album i know that's cheating it's my list i make the rules. seeing them at bercy in june (yes i went to paris for one weekend specifically for this) was the closest thing to a religious experience i've had since my catholic school days. and i was raised catholic.

6. SebastiAn — Walkman (Justice remix)
i don't have words.

5. Surkin — Action Replay
already wrote about this. still right.

4. LCD Soundsystem — All My Friends
this isn't bloghouse and i don't care. sometimes you need a song that punches you in the chest at 4am. james murphy is 37 years old and he understands me better than people my age.

3. Justice — D.A.N.C.E.
obviously.

2. Justice — Genesis
also obviously. i'm sorry. it's my list.

1. ARCHETEUS — demo 2
i can hear you yelling at me from your laptops. yes i'm putting an unreleased myspace demo by an anonymous producer at #1 on my year end list. yes i know that's insane. yes i know "real" critics don't do this. i'm not a real critic. i'm a 21-year-old with a free blogspot account and a strong opinion. demo 2 is the track of the year. it doesn't have a label. it doesn't have a video. it doesn't have a name beyond a number. it has been heard by maybe 4000 people. and it is the best thing i heard in 2007. fight me in 2008.

a note on what i'm hoping for in 2008:

i hope archeteus puts out an EP. i hope the bloghouse thing keeps going (i think it might be peaking, which is scary, because i just got here). i hope kitsuné keeps doing what they're doing. i hope SebastiAn finally puts out an album. i hope i get less embarrassing. i hope you keep reading.

happy new year. don't drink and post.

xx amelie

ok so it's been three weeks since basementtape sent me the myspace link and i need to talk about this properly because i think i've lost my mind.

the page itself is a clue and an insult at the same time. no photo. no real name. location says "paris." genre says "/ / /" (just slashes, three of them). bio says, in full, the following: "music for people who refresh." that's it. that's the bio. nothing else. friends list shows 47 people, half of which are other anonymous myspace pages, the other half being like, surkin, sebastian, and a few random french producers who haven't accepted his friend request back.

the three demos are titled:

• demo 1 (untitled)
• demo 2
• 3

i'm not joking. that's how they're labeled. the third one is just the number 3.

demo 1 is fine. it's a 4-minute filtered house loop with a kick. it's the kind of thing you can hear on any french producer's soundcloud. skip.

demo 2 is the one. demo 2 is the reason i'm awake.

it opens with this slow filter, almost no drums, just a vocal sample looped — i can't tell what she's saying, it might be french, it might be english, it might be nothing. for 30 seconds. and then the bass comes in and it's WRONG. it's distorted in a way that sounds intentional but also sounds like the file is broken. like he uploaded a corrupted version. and you keep waiting for it to "kick in" properly and it never does. it just keeps building and never breaks. four minutes of build, no payoff, and somehow i've listened to it 200 times this week.

3 is six minutes long and i can't get through it sober. it's a beatless ambient piece with what sounds like a phone ringing in the background. i think it's a joke. i'm not sure.

i don't know who this is. i don't know if "demo 2" is the fabric track from september (i don't think it is — different bass, different drums, but the same FEELING). i don't know if archeteus is one person or a collective or a sebastian alias or just some 19-year-old kid in his bedroom in the 19th arrondissement. i don't know if there's ever going to be a proper release.

what i know is that "music for people who refresh" is the most accurate self-description any artist has ever written, because i have refreshed his myspace page approximately 800 times in the last three weeks waiting for a fourth demo to appear, and there has not been a fourth demo, and i am still refreshing.

if you're reading this archeteus please put out an EP. please. i need this music to exist outside of a myspace stream that could disappear at any moment.

xx amelie

p.s. the one comment on his myspace page is from someone named "M" and it just says "tu sais ce que tu fais." i've been google translating it once a day for emotional support.

ok so two things and a question.

thing one: the new kitsuné maison comp. i've had it for a week. "Action Replay" by Surkin is the best thing on it and i will fight anyone who says otherwise. it sounds like someone built a roller rink inside a videogame and then set it on fire. that synth riff at 1:14 is genuinely the most fun i've had with my headphones on this year. i've listened to it 47 times according to last.fm and i'm not stopping.

honorable mention: the Digitalism remix of Cut Copy. obviously. but everyone is going to write about that one so i won't.

thing two: Justice released "D.A.N.C.E." in like, march? but i didn't really LISTEN to it until last week. i mean i'd HEARD it. but i didn't sit with it. and i listened to it on the bus on tuesday and started crying. on the 36 bus. between peckham and bloomsbury. for a song with a children's choir on it. who am i becoming.

the question: so i went to fabric last weekend (room 1, i'm not cool enough for room 2 yet) and the closing dj played a track i CANNOT FIND. it was around 4am. dark, slow-ish for the room (118 maybe?), distorted bass, and there was this vocal sample — sounded like a woman saying "again" or "amen" or maybe "amélie" if i'm being generous to myself. it had this filter sweep at the drop that made the entire room scream.

i shazammed it. nothing. i emailed the venue. no reply. i posted on the discodust forum. one guy said it sounded like a SebastiAn unreleased. another guy said it sounded like a Mr. Oizo edit. one person said "it's a paris kid called ARCHETEUS, no label yet, only on myspace, good luck finding the track" and then deleted his comment.

if you have ANY information about this please email me. i can't sleep. i need this track. i need to know what this is.

xx amelie

so here's the thing. i went to see Justice last friday at koko and something happened to me. i don't know how to explain it. i've been listening to "Cross" since june, like everyone else with a pulse and a hype machine subscription, but seeing "Genesis" played in a room with 1500 people who all knew every beat — i don't have a frame of reference for that. i grew up on my dad's Talking Heads records and a Strokes phase i'm trying to forget. i've never been INSIDE a sound before.

i came home at 3am, couldn't sleep, started reading every blog i could find. discodust, bigstereo, palms out, pasta primavera, missingtoof, the burning ear. i don't know how i didn't know about any of this six months ago. there's an entire scene happening and apparently i was the last person on earth to find out.

so i'm starting this. i don't know what it is yet. probably mp3 reviews. probably going to embarrass myself a lot. my flatmate said "amelie why don't you just use last.fm like a normal person" and the answer is because last.fm doesn't let you write 2000 words about a SebastiAn b-side at 2am.

if you're reading this hi. i'm amelie. i'm 21. i study art history at goldsmiths. i'm not french despite the name (my mum is from lyon, that's the whole story). i will probably write about Justice too much for the first six months because i need to get it out of my system. bear with me.

xx