holy ghost! + das racist at branx

Releasing their debut album on Tuesday, Brooklyn's Holy Ghost! took the #1 spot on the iTunes Electronic charts with the duo of Alex Frankel and Nicholas Millhiser proclaiming they feel "amazing!"Amazing relief and excitement that their self-titled, first album is finally out, via the famous NYC dance label DFA Records, available to the world after years of touring as DJs and, more recently, high-profile opening slots for some of dance's biggest names. OMN spoke with the guys back May 2010 before they ever hit Portland stages opening for both LCD Soundsystem and Chromeo on consecutive tours that swept through PDX and across the nation.

With cred like that, it's not surprise they went straight to #1. Plus the music ain't bad either.

Holy Ghost! makes synthesized, electronic-based pop music--extended dance cuts mixed with the songwriting and pop sensibilities of their DFA mentors: James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and Tim Goldsworthy. Although it's plenty radio-friendly, Holy Ghost!'s bread and butter is the complexly intensifying dance groove that takes six minutes to develop, thus resurrecting a modern-day disco and tropical club jams on dance floors across the world, much like their experienced Aussie counterparts Cut Copy, for whom they are currently opening (except in Portland sadly).

Instead, they'll play Portland as part of the Soul'd Out Music Festival on Wednesday, April 13th at Branx with Portland's Reporter and the ridiculous hip-hop purveyors Das Racist--a Brooklyn trio of color where the "Das" is not a German article but rather a slurred "That's" and who aim to combate racism by casting the first stone, by being racist themselves.

Das Racist is hype man Ashok Kondabolu (aka Dap) and rapper Himanshu Suri (aka Heems), who both grew up in Queens, NY to Indian-born parents, and rapper Victor Vazquez (aka Kool A.D.), from San Francisco and of Afro-Cuban and Italian heritage. With beats that pull from 8-bit video games and have the same minimal complexity as The Cool Kids' Chuck Inglish, Das Racist spouts the "brown skin" political agenda of Dead Prez or Public Enemy but with a but with a novelty, MC Paul Barman twist. Rappers that are also jokesters can be a difficult act to stomach (as the quality of the music often suffers for the sake of comedy), but Das Racist has managed to outlive their internet buzz, even with their questionable initial (s)hit "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell."

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intoxicating : chromeo funks up the roseland

Chromeo is breaching new waters of popularity. With a new album, Business Casual, on the way in September and rave reviews from high-profile festivals, like Bonnaroo where they shared the stage with Daryl Hall, the Québécois electrofunk duo has officially sailed from hipster island into markedly bro-friendly waters.

Maybe it’s the fact that the tour was brought to us by Mountain Dew (and their record label Green Label Sound) or the simple irresistibility of Chromeo’s MJ vs. Prince-inspired beats, but their brand of dance is currently attracting malnourished hipsters as easily as beefy frat boys–bridging the gap between a cross-section of culture that usually sticks to their own locales: The former with their DJs and sweaty mess of Tube and later across the street at Dirty.

Yet, last night, a sold-out Roseland Theater on Friday the 13th told a different story. Amongst bro hugs and nasty grinding, there were also skinny jeaned boys and girls getting down to the same indelible guitar riffs, programmed beats, and robo talkbox.

Not just getting down, Portland was in heat last night for Chromeo: immensely uninhibited and drunk, drunk, drunk. Bikini tops galore, in neon, gold and leopard print, ran around the dance floor as bros booty slapped (each other and females), trying to garner attention from the bikinis and secure a dance partner for the funky, freaky last set.

Some snarky hipsters will be disappointed in Chromeo’s new-found demographic but you can’t knock a band for continuing to do exactly what they were created to do. And that went a little something like this:

As the lights went down and the crowd chanted “Chro-me-o, OOO,” a red neon Chromeo logo glowed on high as Dave 1 and P-Thugg entered to the same “Intro” track from their second album, Fancy Footwork. Blinding strobes pulsed, and a wall of white lights silhouetted the two standing behind their flashing, color-changing light up legs (which were hardly visible unless you were in the very front).

Focusing on hits from Fancy Footwork, a few girls bounced on shoulders as the goofy funk of “Outta Sight” sounded even sillier live. But it served to lubricate the crowd with exactly what they wanted as Dave 1 and P-Thugg tossed vocals back and forth and each grabbed sticks for quick drum breakdowns and cowbell clacks into an all-audience sing along on “Tenderoni.”

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chrome + romeo : electrofunk’s finest romantics chromeo come to the roseland

It’s been three years since Québécois electrofunk masters Chromeo showed their faces around Portland–and it’s not because they were run out of town by snarky hipsters. On the contrary, as their fame swells, so does the love they receive, now encompassing other schools including indie kids, DJs and clubbers.

Regardless of their mounting success, the two funk-heads remain down-to-earth, continuing to spend their lives studying the ’70s and ’80s grooves that populate their tunes, meticulous placing each beat, chord progression, and vocal harmony into each track.

“It’s a long process,” says P-Thugg, one half of the Chromeo duo along with childhood friend Dave 1. “It’s a true craft. We do it out of love.”

In the summer of ‘07, Chromeo was touring in support of their second, and breakout, album Fancy Footwork and played a packed house at Rotture. This time they’re headlining the Roseland Theater on Friday, August 13th and preparing to release their third studio album, Business Casual out on September 14th. When they visit Portland, they’ll be just over halfway through their North American dates and ramping up to play the Hollywood Bowl with the legendary Chemical Brothers and Portland electro-ideologists YACHT.

The team of Dave 1 and P-Thugg, self-dubbed as “the only successful Arab/Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture,” have hit some huge career highs this past year–namely earning praise from personal idols Hall and Oates, with the former inviting Chromeo to his home to practice and perform on a webisode of Live From Daryl’s House. This experiment spawned a one-off performance of Daryl Hall and Chromeo live at this year’s Bonnaroo festival.

Revealing just two tracks so far from their upcoming release, Chromeo has remained true to their ethos giving fans glimpses of their old selves while stepping up the complexity of their music.

“We tried to balance it out between having a bit of an evolution musically and staying fun,” says P-Thugg.

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q/a : holy ghost! portland two times in three months

Brooklyn-based boys Holy Ghost! grew up together on NYC’s Upper West Side as hip-hop heads and were soon picked up and groomed by electro, dance-punk DFA Records’ cohorts James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) and Tim Goldsworthy.

Buzz began to grumble when DFA released their 2008 dance track “Hold On” as the duo of Alex Frankel and Nicholas Millhiser started to stockpile mad remixes, taking tracks from Cut Copy, Moby, MGMT, Phoenix, and more. (Check out those mixes and more on Holy Ghost!’s Winter 2009-2010 Mix Tape here.)

With an affinity for longer, building dance tracks, HG! cuts often clock in around six minutes or more. Their four-track, debut EP, Static on the Wire came out on May 18th on DFA, shows their ability to control energy and atmosphere rather than spewing breakneck radio pop jams that climax before they start. In the vintage synths of “I Know I Hear,” you can hear Daft Punk crossed with Friendly Fires (whose track “On Board” they’ve also remixed).

Releasing their EP on the same day as LCD Soundsystem’s latest (and possibly last?), This Is Happening, the duo remixed LCD’s first single off the new album, “Drunk Girls” (get it here for the cost of an email address), and takes to the road for the first time ever. Bringing along a four-piece band that includes Alex Frankel singing and playing Rhodes, Nick Millhiser on drums, Erik Tonnensen on keys, and Chris Maher on guitar, they’ll hit the Euro fests before opening for Chromeo on a month’s worth of dates from late July into August, including a (second) stop at the Roseland on August 13th with the suave synth-funk Canadians.

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Read the interview on OMN.