philip sherburne

Lean, boy

Track of the week? Le Dust Sucker's "Mean Boy," off his new, self-titled album on Plong!. Sucker (dude and track) starts off with clap-happy percussion heavy on the two and four, an acid line that could scrub drains, and a bass line that sounds like the gunk that'd dribble out -- in other words, right in line with the current electro-house axis of Blackstrobe, Tiefschwarz, Chicken Lips et al. But then the strangest thing happens: horns -- heavenly, angels-harbinging-paradise kind of horns -- blare forth, and a male vocal sample sings, in a wavering perfect fifth, what sounds like "Money gets you lean boy, money gets you lover boy" -- which I'm sure isn't quite it, but that's what I hear, so that's good enough for me. Then a garish female chorus of "Oh, how I cry!" and the whole thing swells like the glass skin of an office building right before it explodes, as in the slow-mo erotic detail of a Bruckheimer or a Matrix. But it never blows up; it just bends, and bends, and bends.