1.) Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem (ST. PATTY'S 2008)

Sound of Silver

LCD Soundsystem
DFA Records.


SCQ Rating: 91%

St. Patrick’s Day, 2007

I was going to start with where I woke up but I no longer recall. I was living between cities and my parents were in the process of moving houses, but I think I slept on the couch of my friend Patrick’s haunted apartment. The three of us (Patrick, his girlfriend Kait, and I) had a variety of things to collect before we took off to Toronto to celebrate the Irish holiday with friends. In charge of getting a variety of chips, pop, Blarney Stone, etc., Kait and I also picked up two essentials for the day; for her, a pair of green sneakers, for me, the new LCD Soundsystem.

I had been mildly pleased with James Murphy’s LCD debut but it played out like a compilation or best-of (the second disc was, to its credit) and I never found reason to put it on repeated-listen priority. We met up with Andy in the early afternoon, scooped up Emily, and on that highway from Hamilton to Toronto it became clear that Sound of Silver was an entirely different record. ‘Get Innocuous!’ opens with a nearly identical beat as his underground hit ‘Losing My Edge’, then transforms into a keyboard heavy dance-track featuring mightily improved, Bowie-esque vocals by Murphy (C'mon, his name is MURPHY, for godssake). It’s a breathtaking seven minutes that feel like three. ‘North American Scum’ had been implanted between our ears after two listens, and we were already beginning to sing along as we parked outside Leith and Nic’s.

Their apartment was swimming in green, strands dangling from the ceiling like vines and balloons waiting to be batted around. The decks of cards were still spotless, the fridge couldn’t even digest the liquor it had to hold, and we still believed our Blarney stone to be stone, not a snow-covered slab of concrete. Yes, the day was young and by the end of it, we all had heard Sound of Silver countless times; the funky vocals of ‘Time to Get Away’, the electronic glow of its title track, and of course, that cut-up piano ecstasy of ‘All My Friends’. The vines and balloons were floor-bound, and the fridge was ready to be gutted. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, people.