LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - 45:33

The concept is intriguing. Nike commissions LCD Soundsystem to create a soundtrack for running, something that can accompany runners all over the world through their ultralight players. James Murphy agrees (it's always his call anyway), and delivers a single "monotrack" lasting 45 minutes and 33 seconds (hence the title), an object that exists only in digital form, available exclusively on iTunes. Some are scandalized, claiming Murphy has sold out. He responds that six months after release everything will revert to DFA Records, available for a possible, more conventional release down the line. And while he's at it, he makes it clear he doesn't own a single piece of Nike gear.

Setting aside the more immediately material questions, it's clear from the cover alone where the new work's ideal lineage lies: yes, because even though it was made available only as a download, the release does have a cover. One that directly recalls that of "E2-E4" by Manuel Göttsching. That is, the record anyone who's heard it can only consider one of the greatest pieces of running music ever made. And also the record that, more than a quarter of a century earlier, was made specifically for headphone listening. Just like this "45:33".

Listening to it, another notorious one-track release comes to mind (one born of error, that one), close by in both music and geography. It's "Romanworld" by Romanthony, the masterpiece of the most romantic of New York DJs, who poured broad streams of soul over house bodies and bare ballads four years before the man gained visibility and fame singing for Daft Punk.

But where "E2-E4" and "Romanworld" traveled down the road of spirituality, Murphy's music overtakes them on the right, in the lane of hedonism, of pure physicality. Sweating, feeling good. In the end, it's this magical pairing that builds the bridge between dancing and running. A bridge onto which LCD Soundsystem launch their creation.

And the start of the journey is among the best, perhaps the finest thing this suite/mix has to offer. A sequencer that speeds up and slows down, piano chords of a kind nobody writes anymore (in house tracks), handclaps. Then the beat and the backing vocals kick in, those backing vocals that sum up James Murphy's irreverent spirit, who manages to lend sense and charm like no one else to something that elsewhere would be mere parody. Yet here they stand as the paradigm of the entire ironic reworking that is the foundation and engine of the LCD Soundsystem project. Finally the bass comes in, and last of all the voice, a warm black soul that recalls every Robert Owens and Frankie Knuckles out there, though it's probably just Murphy, suitably processed. It sounds like a certain strain of old house, the kind dominated by soul and disco influences, the kind that speaks to the heart and is born from it: even the lyrics fall in line.

After almost ten minutes everything turns "heavier". The pace is marked out by the synths. The warm-up is over, we're now in the thick of it, and the motion becomes as mechanical and relentless as the march of the synthesizers. We have to wait until the nineteenth minute for words to return, when over a nice funky groove a George Clinton-style spoken part comes in, trailed by a female chorus that instantly evokes the Seventies. Murphy keeps borrowing from black music canons while adding his unmistakable touch. Then, introduced by trumpets off the leash, a delirium of Yellow Magic Orchestra-style vocoder kicks off, strobe lights, disco suggestions and the luckier Kraftwerk-ian Tour de France. This is the final sprint. Heart rates climb, bpm climb. An excellent penultimate stretch and one of the best parts of "45:33".

Finally, just shy of forty minutes, everything suspends and gives way to a psychedelic, spaced-out coda, perfect for when fatigue takes hold of the body but the mind is already projected toward the triumph and ecstatic relaxation that follow crossing the finish line. Because every finish line is glorious, and LCD Soundsystem could only celebrate it (and celebrate you) in their own inimitable way.

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30/12/2006