Sach O contributes to Resident Advisor now and has a gig this Sunday.
I have no idea who producer Jacques Greene is. Supposedly, he comes from my hometown of Montreal so either he’s a Burialesque shadow existing in his own space outside the city’s DJ community or I’m simply ignorant and have walked by him 100 times at shows. Given his music’s strong House foundation, he could also be one of those people that hangs out at posh night clubs I can’t afford, I dunno, you tell me. In any case, Jacques Greene’s got beats and is making power moves: “(Baby) I don’t know what you want” is an integral part of the upcoming Night Slugs Allstars compilation and “The Look” is coming out on LuckyMe. If you don’t know, these are two labels that even Kanye West would describe as “tasteful.”
“(Baby) I don’t know what you want” conveniently sorts out and synthesizes a number of prevalent trends in bass music: hypercolor synths, a return to the grown & sexy side of things via wistful teen-R&B samples and steady, pulsing, 90s percussion with the occasional millennial flourish. The sticking point is the song’s monstrous hook: a computer’s approximation of what a breakup sounds like with the track’s chipmunked song title hashing it out with a resigned vocal crying out “So Sad! So Sad!” I don’t know if the above video sampling 2001 one is official, but it certainly captures the mood of loss as refracted by a digital entity.
“The Look” is a little more human with a video to match featuring a couple of really hot girls basically walking around. Musically, its not quite as rough as I’d like it to be and I’m used to material a tad faster but your mileage may vary. In any case, its a post Dark Twisted Fantasy world and I’ll give almost anything a listen if the video features models. When Jeff covers dance music, he occasionally mentions that his inner 15 year old wants to kill him for liking this stuff and admittedly, the part of me that covers old Rage Against the Machine records has a hard time with sexy House but hey, I watched TRL with the rest of them and this ain’t worst than “The Boy is Mine”. Plus CNN tells me that Euro-Hop is the big thing right now so I think I’m comparatively good on the authenticity scale. Lemme check with my Rabbi.
Jacques Greene – The Look from LuckyMe on Vimeo.
