♫: vitalic - repair machines (2005)

there's a typical flow to any given weekend night here in south korea. it generally starts in the early evening as dinner with friends, which segues nicely, and with ease, into drinks with friends. this period lasts for some time until someone's foot starts to itch and those who remain shuffle over to one of the few clubs daegu has to offer. in new york i would occassionally go dancing with friends (good as time as any to shout out the nyc crew: saki, jeff, addie, jenifer, 3d, laura - am i forgetting someone?), but never has clubbing been such a staple of my nightlife since moving to korea. what can i say, i guess i like to dance.

the problem i have with the korean club scene is the lack of diversity in its music. every night may be a different dj but they're all using the same components in their setlists. i guess its just another example of the collectivist nature of korea - they know what everyone likes so why mess with a good thing? i think it's because of this i've grown used to the typical pacing and expected climaxes of your standard club-ready electronic music and hungry for something even a little bit different.

enter vitalic's 2005 album ok cowboy. i picked it up shortly after reading pitchfork's top overlooked albums of the aughts (im sure it had a catchier title than that) and wasn't disappointed, but due to my greedy music habits i tend to acquire and set aside at a rapid pace, leaving the album to settle on the shelf for awhile. that is until recently, when listening to my ipod while stuck on the korean transit system, ok cowboy crept back up again. it was exactly what i was looking for to counteract this feeling of electronic malaise.

although there are several standout tracks, many of which are more dance-floor accessible, my favorite on the album is repair machines. what starts out as a simple, punchy bass-line soon gets overtaken by blips of a broken robotic castrato. this vocal element builds on itself like the drums and synths that make up the back beat, and by the time the big climax hits around the 1:50 mark, everything has come to a haunting and dramatic, although distorted, resolution. while the track is perfectly dance-able, there's still an overwhelming feeling that something isn't quite right, where you can't lose yourself perfectly in the music because it's not just a good beat, but something kind of human and tragic in those metallic echoes. the closest comparison that comes to mind is the knife's challenging opera soundtrack from last year.

so here's the challenge to you korean dj's out there: go out on a limb with those setlists. variety is good. maybe even necessary. just because the song is called "one more time" doesn't mean you have to follow it as instruction (to be fair i dont think they ever play that song).