The 2kDozen 500: #257 - Foals, "Tapes"

This is a lovely album, a mixtape with magnetic oxides in his eyes and spools in its lungs. And from a band I don't find easy to love. The mix was wide and narrow and broad and exquisite. There's a Bibio mix of Clark, some hypnotic Konono No1, Carl Craig mixing Tony Allen: there's a fruity smell of love around the whole enterprise. Some real affection for the music, not just posing. I don't know.

As the collection continues, there is a bit more of a chill in the wave, but it works; it still stalks around from a different angle. JR Seaton gets all locked and laid-back hysterical, wobbly walls of disco tumbling down. In Flagranti spit out some real sirling disco strings - and what a great Seventies name for a band that would be: perfect. Some house music flourishes, presumably of the now than the then. "We Call Love" houses sweetly from out the blocks. "Mushrooms" is Marshall Jefferson narrating a trip over some delicious, Balearic beats.

It was all genuinely exciting, even while I was ploughing through that that wasn't.

Rating: Lemonade out of Discotheque