Giorgio Moroder would be so proud

Casper The Friendly Ghost-Daniel Johnston

In honor of Halloween, I thought I'd review a Daniel Johnston song. If you haven't heard Daniel Johnston, well, you are seriously missing out. There was a documentary out about a year ago, and he is much loved in the music community.

I won't go into his whole back story (its on the Internet) in a million different variations. I will say that I love him. There is something oddly beautiful about his voice. Can he sing? Does it matter? I think there is just something fragile and incredibly honest about his voice. Particularly on this song (it is not a cover of the song from the cartoon).

And his songwriting skills are pretty amazing.

The Daydream-Tycho

Autumnal beauty...this song sounds exactly like its title. It is a 'day' song...there is something slighly light about it, like shafts of sunlight coming into a room. Yet there is something melancholy about it. One of the great things about instrumental tracks is that they leave so much for interpretation...its so much about the mood you bring to the song

This is a serious beauty...lovely music to reflect by. I don't know much about Tycho...this is from a compilation called Do That: Rare Birds From The Terrorbird Vault.

I'll Be By Your Side (Tensnake Remix)-Sally Shapiro

Sally Shapiro is a much raved about Swedish singer whose 2006 record Disco Romance hearkens back to the 80's and Italo-Disco and Pamela Stanley and Lime and Eurobeat. Its a beautiful record, stunningly so. As far as I know, this isn't her real name and she has never performed live.

Almost like Robyn, Lykke Li or even Justin Timberlake, this is a record that has generated an online buzz among music blogs. I've seen it reviewed in magazines that wouldn't normally touch this kind of music (shame).

In any event, the original is a lovely pop hit. You hear it, and, like Lykke Li and Veronica Maggio, you think "wow, this is what the last Kylie or Madonna record should have sounded like". Lyrically, the song is about devotion to a lover (perhaps not surprisingly, given the title).

Some time after the album came out, she has remixed Remix Romance Volume I and Remix Romance Volume II with, yup, all sorts of remixed versions of Disco Romance. And, in a nice surprise, almost all of them work or are at least interesting.

But this remix...man, this remix...its massive. Tensnake are doing the whole "NuDisco" thing (think Lindstrøm) and this mix is 10 minutes of Italo-disco heaven. Her vocals just weave in and out of the song...in dance music, this type of record is often referred to as a journey. It is certainly transportive.

They say when "I Feel Love" was played out (it was finished, put on vinyl and walked to a club) the reaction was so strong they just kept playing it over and over. This song gives me that feeling. You really don't want it to end. Giorgio Moroder would be so proud.