As A Child

Hercules & Love Affair - Blind (video above)

Hercules & Love Affair, the musical project of our pal Andy Butler that features production work by Tim Goldsworthy, and vocals by Nomi, Antony and Kim-Ann, has been stirring up all kinds of hype throughout this last year, due in no small part to the fact that the album is being released by DFA (in partnership with EMI in Europe and Mute here in the US). I've said it before, and I'll say it again without hesitation, that DFA has been on a roll lately, with the singles they've put out last year and so far this year, their Death From Abroad sub-label, and now Hercules And Love Affair, the label is really at the top of their game.

The track with the video above, "Blind", was given away as the free song of the week on iTunes a couple of weeks ago, which I thought was a pretty brilliant move - the comments people left on iTunes were pretty hilarious as well, with most people calling it terrible disco garbage, showing once again how far removed the general public mainstream-consumer is from house and disco music.

Anyway, I've been anticipating this release for a long long time now - since Andy told me he was working on a full-length just about a year ago - and the album doesn't disappoint at all. Andy and company cover a lot of ground, with classic house and disco being the jumping-off points. The tracks with Antony on vocal duty are especially strong - "Blind" sounds excellent on the dancefloor, and others, like "You Belong" are just as good. "Athene", which lived on the Hercules & Love Affair Myspace page for ages, sounds great once it is freed from the lo-fi restraints of myspace-streaming. Basically what I'm saying is that the record is great and should be heard.

You can download the "Hercules Theme" track if you fill out this form. Hercules And Love Affair is out now in Europe, and comes out in the US Tuesday June 24th. Highly recommended.