Posts Tagged ‘James Murphy’

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – ” Shut Up and Play the Hits ” (2012) Documentary

Posted: May 25, 2020 in MUSIC
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Three years ago, hundreds of friends and thousands of fans converged on Madison Square Garden for LCD Soundsystem’s farewell performance. All the while, the cameras were rolling, resulting in Shut Up And Play the Hits, a documentary that follows James Murphy and the band in the days leading up to, during and after the tumultuous four-hour farewell. Directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern use a staggering number of cameras and crosscut liberally to provide an experience that’s arguably even better than seeing the band live (okay, maybe not quite that good but…). And the scenes outside the concert footage are equally compelling.

On April 2nd 2011, LCD Soundsystem played its final show at Madison Square Garden. LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy had made the conscious decision to disband one of the most celebrated and influential bands of its generation at the peak of its popularity, ensuring that the band would go out on top with the biggest and most ambitious concert of its career. The instantly sold out, near four-hour extravaganza did just that, moving the thousands in attendance to tears of joy and grief, with NEW YORK magazine calling the event “a marvel of pure craft” and TIME magazine lamenting “we may never dance again.”  SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS is both a narrative film documenting this once in a life time performance and an intimate portrait of James Murphy as he navigates the lead-up to the show, the day after, and the personal and professional ramifications of his decision. Watch the official trailer here

The official trailer for SHUT AND PLAY THE HITS, the music documentary on LCD Soundsystem’s last ever gig at Madison Square Gardens.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – ” American Dream / Call The Police “

Posted: May 6, 2017 in MUSIC
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LCD Soundsystem promised two new songs last night, and you can hear them now below. These are the first new tracks from James Murphy and co. since 2015’s one-off bummer jam, “Christmas Will Break Your Heart.”

“Call the Police” begins in similarly bleak territory: “We all know this is nothing / This is nowhere,” Murphy sings to open the track, his vocals intertwined with uplifting guitars that call to mind Bowie’s “Heroes.” From there, Pat Mahoney’s drums jump in and it’s off to the races—the hard-charging dance-rock odyssey stretches past seven minutes, but manages to feel instead like a gloriously fleeting burst of escapist mania.

“American Dream,” on the other hand, feels dreamier, more garbled—Murphy’s voice itself is far more sorrowful here, even as he offers what reassurances he can: “But that’s okay / And that’s okay.” Gossamer synths surround his howls and the track crescendos until collapsing just past the six-minute mark, as if it can’t bear the weight of all that disappointment anymore. It’s bittersweet, but this is nothing if not a triumphant return for LCD.

“i (james) mixed ‘American Dream’ at DFA Studios, and my friend Dave Sardy mixed ‘Call the Police’ at his sweet place in LA last week,” wrote Murphy in a Facebook post yesterday. ”[We] shuttled them quickly to the great Bob Weston (at Chicago Mastering Service) to master them so we could get them out today.”

The band’s new record is in the final stages now—”seriously almost done with the LP,” Murphy wrote in the same post—and we could not be more excited for it.

Murphy also adds that the new LP (the band’s first in seven years) is almost finished, and that there are “1 more vocal and 2 more mixes to go.” He says they also aim to have a vinyl release on the same day as everything else, so that’ll hold the album up just a tad.

And, to further sweeten the deal, Murphy says in his post that the band will be going on tour, and intimates he’s doing as much as possible to keep the show’s from being in some “mega-dome” where half of the crowd needs “binoculars to see if pat is actually behind the drums or if it’s louis ck or something.”

Listen to “American Dream” and “Call the Police” here