Various Artists: Go Commando with JDH & Dave P

New York’s been bursting with hipster parties that promise a somewhat one-note version of cool. This combination of debauchery and the songs you’d downloaded the week before from Palms Out Sounds or Discobelle. JDH & Dave P’s Fixed parties, recently moved from the basement of the Tribeca Grand to the more buzzed Brooklyn spot Studio B, have been one of the better established of the bunch — a party last year with Erol Alkan was a sweaty pleasure. But the duo’s attempt to recreate that eclectic love of new indie electro doesn’t translate so well to the more permanent CD form. You see, with a weekly party you can experiment with an ever-changing selection of songs, keeping those that light up a crowd, and ditching those that don’t — you wouldn’t run into the problem, say, of opening with the same track that Cut Copy used in their Fabriclive disc from last year. Whoops. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with Joakim’s heaving “I Wish You Were Gone”, but Fabriclive.29 was one of the most popular installments for Fabric in 2006, and the double-up smacks of amateurism. Go Commando offers the highlights you expect, and little of those new pleasures that distinguish the best mix CDs. If you haven’t heard the Knife’s “Silent Shout” by now, you’ll enjoy it — but because it’s so much better than the songs that surround it when parts of those songs bleed in at the beginning and the end it’s annoying, not revelatory. JDH & Dave P aren’t so much DJs on this CD as avid music fans staying in touch with the latest in indie dance music, thrown together with the help of iTunes’ cross-fade, more or less. There are some other great tracks — Ed Banger fave Mr. Oizo’s too-short electro banger, and the familiar Soulwax version of “Standing in the Way of Control”, and Vitalic’s gothic and deep “Poney, Pt 1” — but the disc seems a little too rooted in the now to be a really lasting pleasure. Dave P & Adam Sparkles’ remix of 120 Days’ blog hit “Come Out, Come Down, Fade Out, Be Gone” is one of the only cuts really given the room it deserves. The song’s beauty is in the slow unfold, and this remix makes the most of that — it’s well done indeed. But most of the rest of the album fails to find that same thrill.