Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 18/12/06
Label: Download

In London's East End, you can be lynched for disrespecting James Murphy: he's the untouchable paragon of indie cool. As one half of remix/production team DFA, he's sprinkled fairy dust over records by Radio 4, Soulwax, Nine Inch Nails, Gorillaz and countless others. His label, DFA Records, has released albums by Hot Chip and The Rapture. What's more, Murphy makes (great) records of his own, as LCD Soundsystem. Theoretically, the man can do no wrong.

Commissioned by Nike, "45:33" comprises 45 mins and 33 secs of seamless, original "body music" by LCD Soundsystem. Apparently intended as music to work out to, it's download-only and comes with a four-page PDF booklet, which we'll tell you about later. First, let's talk about the music: "45:33" is, for the most part, excellent. It opens with some anticipatory piano -house which, after nine mins and forty secs, segues into a stunning eight mins of instrumental electro-pop that, with vocals, will be to 2007 what Hot Chip's "Over And Over" was to 2006. Because their forthcoming album "Sound Of Silver" has leaked and discussed online, we can tell you that said dance-floor monster is named "Someone Great".

One wonders how James Murphy managed to sell music to Nike while retaining copyright and keeping his major-label paymasters happy. One wonders also why he's lumbering his new album with advertising associations before it even comes out. Despite its branding as work-out music, "45:33" feels more like an amazing club DJ set than something to quicken one's pace on the treadmill. This may be because James Murphy looks like a sweatier Phil Mitchell, or it may be because your reporter has never darkened a gymnasium's door in his life.

Either way, nothing that follows "45:33" quite tops the staggering "Someone Great" bit, but quality remains high: there are playful sections with amusingly robotic vocals; salsa and calypso rhythms creep in at times; there are moments of wistful melancholia, and others of sweeping euphoria. The track closes with a lengthy musical wind-down, presumably to comfort you when you're slumped over that treadmill struggling for breath. So sustained is this wind-down that you suspect the track's length was decided before its content ("45:33" being resonant with vinyl playing speeds).

Assuming you're not down the gym, it gives you time to read the booklet - and this is not a good thing, for here you find James Murphy explaining this work: "I became excited when the Nike+ project came along…I train fighting and jiu jitsu 3 or 4 times a week, and a big part of that training is treadmill running, so I saw this also as a way to create a run on the treadmill that worked for me…" These are words to pique your initial misgivings: they make Murphy sound like a corporate shill. The guy's about to hit us with a brilliant LP but, for now, we're somewhat haunted by the first words he sings on "45:33": "Shame on you…"

    by Niall O'Keeffe