Stephen Malkmus - Kindling For The Master (Domino)
UK release date: 28 August 2006
While his former Silver Jews collaborator David Berman strides ever more confidently towards the ultimate thrift-store guitar-poet crown, Stephen Malkmus seems determined to head in the other direction, embracing the technotrancefloor with his latest single, which offers four suitably varied takes on Kindling For The Master, last heard on his third solo album Face The Truth.
The remixes (all of which have vocals, despite what you might expect from the sleeve notes) cover enough variety of ground to make the exercise worth it. Though the package starts unpromisingly with a run-of-the-mill dancefloor pleaser by Emperor Machine, it all gets better very quickly as Major Swellings, aka Norwegian club pioneer Prins Thomas, gives things an altogether more grandiose, darker and more...well...swelling sound, leading us down night spirals to dark leather couches in darker club corners.
As you might expect, Hot Chip bring out a heavier, more robotic undertone which starts off sounding as if it's not going to make much of an impression, then suddenly comes alive with the kind of half-acknowledged birdsong that invades your head as you decide a nice lie in a bush and a few hours gazing at the stars is what you really need to make the night special. It takes the remix of the night crown hands down.
The final, Polmo Polpo Remix is poppier, sunnier and reeks of Eurovision-does-Ibiza, with a vocal mix that almost screams out Lemon Jelly in places. The distant pan-pipe echo dreamscape is particularly paranoic, gently pleasing the ears until it disappears in a long, drawn out fade into a humming electronic oblivion.