Hey Old Man Winter, Get Bent

Mother Nature is about to dump a foot of frozen isht on my house. At least that’s what the meteorologists tell me. That reminds me of the fact that I don’t have a snow blower, which means I get to shovel.I like a little bit of electro when I shovel snow. It’s got a steady beat that keeps me from lying down in a snow bank, which would ultimately lead to my untimely demise. So seeing as it’s going to snow, and sooner or later I will be shoveling the isht off of my driveway, I might as well talk about electro. Exhibit A: Hot Chip. Hot Chips’ last album, The Warning, was good enough to make me take an interest in the band. The album was a fine example of electro rock with enough hooks and melody to reel me in. Exhibit B: Hot Chip’s newest album, Made In The Dark, is slowly growing on me. My first impression was: its still electro rock but the hooks are missing and it’s mostly devoid of melody – kind of like listening to two blind and deaf people play a drum machine and whale on a guitar. I don’t feel that way anymore but I’m still not about to award it album of the year. Exhibit C: My long standing favorite for shoveling snow is Coil and their 1993 album Love’s Secret Domain. Coil is what happened when seminal electronic group Throbbing Gristle broke up. The other half went on to form Psychic TV (or something like that. I’ve given up on fact checking. Do a Google search).Coil is on the other side of the electro spectrum, more ambience and noise than rock and so Love’s Secret Domain is a bit of a hodge-podge of bleeps, beats and didgeridoo. If you need something to do during a night snowstorm, drop this album on your iPod and go wander around the desolate streets of suburbia. Fun stuff. Stuff to Sample: From Hot Chip’s The Warning, “The Warning” and “Over And Over,” and from Coil’s Love’s Secret Domain “The Snow” and “Love’s Secret Domain”