New Muck

Whatever you want to call it -- Nu Rave, whatever -- and whomever you want to apply the moniker to (just Klaxons and their group or others as well? ... Crystal Castles and that crew), some of the music included in the loose categorization of Nu Rave is pretty damn cool. For me, a lot of it seems like a second go 'round for dance-punk. Crystal Castles eliminated guitars, but pumped up the dance aspect of the style, Klaxons fiddled around with vocals and synth lines more, but also maintained a high level of dancy-ness.

Anyway, I recently came across some other groups that I'm at least pairing up with the likes of these Nu Ravers.

Lost Penguin is a little more electro-clashy than anything I've heard from the Nu Rave scene, but man can you groove to this stuff, and certainly, it's got the aesthetic of Nu Rave (bright neon colors, cut-and-paste graphics). Maybe I'm being delusional and making connections that don't exist ... maybe these guys are just Punk with a bit of the B-52s blended in the mix. Head off to their MySpace page. Man does that Charleigh Blue have some vocal chops.

Definitely, though, Dreamburger is the S. African equivalent of Crystal Castles. Sounds like 8-Bit dance to me, but this stuff is -- believe it or not -- more spastic, harsher, and jagged. If you're up for a bit of a beating to the eardrums, these are the guys for you.

And since I wrote so much about Crystal Castles here, how about a new CC track (found at Missing Toof)?

Crystal Castles - Black Fag
Lost Penguin - Mr. Whippy
Dreamburger - apocALypseWOW
Dreamburger - Ultimate Shame Fest