Deadly Hands of Analog | MSTRKRFT

Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Bill Murphy

WITH FIST OF GOD, MSTRKRFT GOES OLD-SCHOOL SYN AND OUTBOARD CRAZY, POUNDING ITS SIGNATURE ELECTRO-PUNK SOUND INTO A WHOLE NEW ELEMENT

Click here to read the Fist of God album review.

Even in stealth mode, MSTRKRFT's Jesse F. Keeler somehow manages to attract attention. He's grabbing a quick smoke outside the lower Manhattan offices of Downtown Records, where he and fellow KRFTsman Al-P (Alex Puodziukas) have taken over the label's recording studio to track some vocals for their new album, when two eagle-eyed youngsters stop to converse. Keeler is open and easygoing with their questions — the very idea of rock star preening makes him cringe — and he offers sage and sincere words of encouragement before turning to go back inside.

“I'm gonna change my first name to Tangent,” he jokes. “‘Hi, I'm Tangent Keeler — I'm going off!’” Upstairs at the studio, he settles into a couch next to Al-P and immediately launches into a hilarious shtick about how much easier it is to talk about recording tips and gear to Remix rather than submit to questions about how the group feels about the latest trendy topic. “Yeah, we feel really great about feeling feelings,” he drawls. “I had a real realization of reality the other day.” He glances sideways at Al-P, and the two of them snicker dryly.

The vibe is relaxed and confident in the MSTRKRFT camp, and with good reason. Since the release of their breakout debut, The Looks (Last Gang/Vice, 2006), they've hooked up remixes for an unusually diverse client list that includes Wolfmother, Chromeo, Brazilian Girls, Kylie Minogue, Usher, and most recently, John Legend (“Green Light,” the single from his upcoming album, Evolver). Last year, they hit the road with none other than John Digweed for a U.S. club tour, and this past summer they rocked Australia before initiating the fall leg of their Fist of God tour in the U.S.

Fist of God, in fact, is the title of the Toronto-based duo's long-awaited sophomore album (Dim Mak, 2008) — a sinewy and aggressive take on the distorted synth melodies and thick-hipped club beats that have been at the heart of MSTRKRFT's music ever since Keeler cut back on his bass playing and began moving away from the mutant dance-punk of his former band Death From Above 1979, with drummer Sebastien Grainger. Although at this writing the album was still in the final stages of tracking and mixing, JFK and Al-P revealed an ample glimpse of their new direction when they released the sawtoothed single “Bounce,” with guest vocals by N.O.R.E. (aka Noreaga), back in April.

“Sometimes we go in the studio and just start a beat and things come together,” Keeler explains. “‘Bounce’ was like that. I remember I was in the studio and I was waiting for Al to get there, so I just started working on a beat, and I had the beginning of the song when he came in. We did a lot more work on it eventually, but really, we were planning this album before we even finished The Looks. We probably started at least 30 tracks. Some of them we ripped apart to make the other songs that we did choose sound better. So a song that was getting scrapped but had an amazing hi-hat pattern, that pattern might have been stolen and put into something else, just to combine the good ideas from different tracks.”

DECREASE AND SIMPLIFY

While MSTRKRFT may have taken a cut-and-paste approach to assembling most of the songs on Fist of God, their intentions from the percussive side of the equation were much more about stripping down the kit to only what was essential. Although the band still relies a lot on the Roland TR-707 (whose unmistakable clap sound can be heard all over The Looks, especially on the album's first single “Easy Love”), and will fold in sounds from actual 808 and 909 units (rather than the sampled sets), Keeler and Al-P have also added a vintage LinnDrum to their arsenal. And they've taken to layering their snares with more precision to suggest the presence of a real drummer.

“I think we've been a little more selective about what goes into the drum kits on this record,” Al-P says, “especially when we're talking about the individual pieces — kick, snare, hi-hat, open hi-hat, crash. I'm calling it a drum kit, even though it's a bunch of samples, but we wanted to create the illusion of some sort of drum kit being played. So just in the programming, just changing the slightest thing — like taking out one closed hi-hat where you wouldn't be able to actually play it — changes the feel of the drum part dramatically. When you make sure all of that fits together, it really changes the way you hear it, I think. It just feels more exciting when there's a piece missing at the right moment.”

The aesthetic comes through in the breakdown section of “Vuvuvu,” the bugged-out flip side of “Bounce.” As the rhythm gradually decelerates and the lead synth line becomes more and more unhinged (complete with sampled crowd noise to heighten the mood), a simple kick-and-crash hit accentuates each bar, programmed even to duplicate the muting of the crash that happens when a drummer grabs the ringing cymbal just after it's struck.

“We pull drum samples like that all the time,” Keeler says, “not just from new records, but old disco records, too. No one's ever gonna come after us for it, because we're just gonna process it afterwards anyway. But it comes from when we first started talking to Armand Van Helden, who's been like our godfather. We've been getting tips from him about just trying to get a sound that you hear in a club or on the radio or whatever. If it's a sound you like, just pull some stuff out and try to get it, because he said to us, ‘Listen, the chances are someone else has already done it.’ And he pointed out that apparently Thomas Bangalter — Daft Punk — told him that their drums get stolen so much that he just started putting white noise in the drum sound to make it unusable. [Laughs.]”

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