ARTIST: Uncut
TITLE: Modern Currencies
LABEL: Paper Bag Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 224kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 48m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-10-25
RIP DATE: 2006-09-22
Track List
----------
1. Dark Horse 5:02
2. Hideaway 3:24
3. New Cities 4:24
4. Out of Sight 5:35
5. Breaking Glass 4:04
6. Never Say Never 4:19
7. Kiss Me 3:35
8. These Times 3:26
9. Minus One 3:41
10. Chain Fight 3:46
11. The Night Can See 3:34
12. Prison Waltz 3:37
Release Notes:
This is a story of fortunate chemistries, of promising beginnings and waylaid
expectations. It is a story that once seemed prematurely doomed to a somewhat
bittersweet, but wholly unfulfilling end. It is also, however, a story of
soldiering on, of rebirth and great things to come.
Uncut was born a bit of a lark in Toronto in November of 2001. Roommates Ian
Worang and Jake Fairley were at a party one Saturday night when talk turned to
an upcoming gig Fairley, already a techno producer of some esteem, had planned û
or, rather, had yet to plan û for the cityÆs nascent Mission techno night.
He wasnÆt really sure what he was going to do for the show. They decided to play
his cover of æI Wanna Be Your DogÆ with live bass and guitar, even though Jake
had never played guitar before.
Worang and FairleyÆs personal tastes both ran to atmospheric guitar rock of the
My Bloody Valentine, Television and Joy Division varieties as well as the
hyper-modern, minimal techno espoused by the likes of Mike Ink and Michael
Mayer. The two had already spent a few boozy nights discussing their shared
desire to merge the song structure and aggression of punk rock with the
precision pulse of modern dance music. They decided to put theory into practice.
After three daysÆ worth of guerilla guitar coaching, Worang and Fairley began
gigging as often as they could, alternating between live-music clubs and
electronic events in keeping with their willfully boundary-smashing
rock-meets-techno aesthetic. The Uncut watched its profile trace a steep upward
arc amongst local indie-rock fans and techno aficionados. Jeremy P. Caulfield, a
Toronto techno ex-pat and proprietor of the Kompakt-distributed Dumb-Unit
Records, issued UncutÆs early single, ôUnderstanding The New Violence,ö a few
months later and it remains a playlist staple amongst such discerning
tastemakers as Tiga, DJ Hell and Miss Kittin to this day. Then rising Toronto
indie Paper Bag Records offered to put out a full-length Uncut album after
having witnessed their evolution, from the first gig in a dingy basement bar to
the mind-blowing Canadian Music Week gig during the winter of 2003. Everything
was falling into place. And thenà
àlimbo.
They agreed to do a full-length with Paper Bag, but were a little delayed
because Jake was spending his summer in Germany. Worang left patiently waiting
at home while Fairley suddenly became the toast of the Cologne techno set.
Unfortunately, days before he was due home, Jake decided to stay in Germany
Undeterred and encouraged by Paper BagÆs unwavering enthusiasm for the music,
Worang pulled together ôa bunch of guys I knowö (Jon Drew, Sam Goldberg and
Derek Tokar) and set about reconfiguring Uncut as a more traditional, four-piece
rock band. A few low-profile gigs around Toronto quickly made it clear that this
incarnation of the band was, if anything, a more formidable unit than its
predecessor.
No longer reliant on an arsenal of gadgets and mysterious boxes to flesh out its
sound, the new Uncut deals in a far more dynamic breed of low-slung,
noise-charged menace. The overt electronic influence is fainter, although the
fat, fearsome grooves and nagging pop melodies that have brought legions of tech
heads and dour indie kids together on the dancefloor in the past remains.
Indeed, UncutÆs brooding, sharp-edged grind often recalls the last two eras
where rock drew renewed energy from a dalliance with dance music: The disco-fed
post-punk heyday book ended by Joy Division and New Order and the ecstatic
sprawl of tech-savvy, post-rave British guitar rock.
This is the new violence.