A User's Guide to DFA

For all the oft-vaunted frustration about getting indie rockers into dance music, it didn't turn out to be that hard after all.

All it took was two acronyms and one single to convince oughties rockers to give up their disco hang-ups. The initials in question, of course, are DFA and LCD (as in Soundsystem); the single, "Losing My Edge," a droll meditation on the woes of the world-weary hipster set to an improbably groovy drum-machine riff. Everyone knows the story from there: LCD Soundsystem, originally a solo studio project of DFA cofounder James Murphy, exploded into a powerhouse five-piece live act with two well-received albums under its belt, while DFA itself — short for "Death From Above" — came to stand for something far more than a label: a sound, an aesthetic and even perhaps an ethic. (Despite a distribution deal with EMI for a portion of its catalogue, DFA, founded by Murphy and his production partner, Tim Goldsworthy as an outlet for their own work, continues to operate on the modest scale of a bootstrap indie.)

But while Murphy's activities have made DFA visible on a grand scale — thanks to high-profile remixes and production work (for the likes of the Rapture, Daft Punk and even Britney Spears, though the latter was never released), DJ appearances and a mix CD for London's Fabric — some corners of the DFA catalogue get far less exposure. Namely, DFA's 12-inch singles, where a diverse roster of bands, solo producers and remixers take disco and punk not as endgame, but at starting points for their own creative reinterpretations of contemporary dance music. Despite DFA's reputation for fostering a specific sound — a muscular form of dance music heavy on vintage keyboards, ropy electric bass lines, drums both programmed and spliced from studio sessions, and the overdriven sound of tubes and tape — the label's singles catalogue more often than not defies caricature, from anthems to oddities.

As far as anthems go, you don't get much more anthemic than the Juan MacLean's rollicking "Happy House," which reclaims the pistoning piano chords of early house and garage for nearly 13 minutes of swirling bliss. The former Six Finger Satellite member's singles for DFA have always leaned towards the extroverted, but this 2008 track — a staple of underground house nights in Europe as well as rock clubs in Brooklyn — was his most jubilant yet. For a genre where epics are the norm, it earns its length. Nancy Whang's waterwheeling vocals don't even come in until the three-and-a-half minute mark — just when most pop songs would be winding down. And for the entirety of its ride it just keeps building and building; by the end, you imagine the piano player's fingers mashed and bloodied beneath a shuddering synthesizer. Prince Language's dub mix, a classic example of the disco B-side, remains faithful to the contours of the original. His changes are in some ways cosmetic — toning down the high-end here, looping a bass line there—but the effect is to take the song as though deep underwater, accentuating the immersive aspect of the dance floor at its most hypnotic. You have to listen to the details to really appreciate Prince Language's update — which makes sense for a label founded by a pair of producer/engineers.

Another Juan MacLean track pushes at the limits of the anthemic, but this time it's in the guise of a remix from Marcus Worgull, whose remix of MacLean's "Simple Life" shimmers like a field of wind turbines in the desert heat, spun by steadily streaming arpeggios and little gusts of synthesizer chords. But what's really interesting is how far it strays from the DFA template. Marcus Worgull is affiliated with Germany's deep-house-leaning Innervisions label, but the style his remix most closely resembles is classic trance, what with its billowing pads and ethereal female vox. It's a testament to DFA's trust-its-gut ethos that the label would release a track at which a goodly proportion of its core audience might instinctively turn up their noses.

Holy Ghost!'s "Hold On" is another rough-hewn disco diamond in the vein of "Happy House" or DFA/EMI signing Hercules and Love Affair. Far less spacey than their Scandinavian cohorts like Lindstrom or Prins Thomas, Holy Ghost! share Metro Area's pointillistic approach, peppering the sound field with bells, bleepy synthesizers and neatly plucked guitars. Though the hot drums and biting clavinet of "Hold On" suggest something of DFA's trademark sound, Holy Ghost!'s fantastic set of reworks for Panthers show their versatility: the main remix is a nimble, melody-driven stepper, while the "Extended Disco Dub," featuring cutting drums and metallic sheets of sound, feels at once vaporous and diamond-hard. (A set of "Hold On" remixes, meanwhile, shows DFA's knack for milking more out of a good song: the Mock and Toof remix sucks out everything but the strutting beat and juicy stabs of bass and keyboard, leaving the song floating in a kind of funk vacuum; Mock's "Mod Mix," meanwhile, borrows the bent timbres from Indian percussion and marries them with the muffled tone bursts and psychedelic voices of European minimal, to truly mind-bending effect.) If the spirit's really got you gripped, don't miss Holy Ghost!'s keen reworks of Cut Copy and Only Fools and Horses.

Still Going are also exceptional on their "Still Going Theme," a track that wonderfully recalls the impulses towards functionality and anonymity that propelled so much early electronic dance music. Once again, piano plays the lead role, repeating over and over a riff that seems at once jaunty and level-headed. The production is refreshingly clean, with empty space cushioning each sound, and culminating with a mid-range intensification that's as captivating as it is subtle. Utilizing the same sound, "On and On" is essentially a variation of the "Still Going Theme," and it lives up to both titles in great pulsing waves composed of short looped phrases, sweeping you up in cycles upon cycles with seemingly no end. It's the same trick performed by New York's Runaway on "Brooklyn Club Jam" (licensed to DFA from Radio Slave's REKIDS label) as they stir dubbed-out piano chords, petulant drum machines and acid bass into a murky, endless wormhole.

Shit Robot remains one of DFA's more outré artists. The yawning "Chasm" is a slow, methodical unrolling of line after chugging line; his synthesizers bubble and hiss like they were on fire; the end result feels like some unholy trinity of Detroit techno, Italo disco and black metal. Syclops (Maurice Fulton) maps his own little quadrant of outer space with the "Where's Jason's K?" single. The title track, all rubber boogie and teakettle lead, goes bumping along like a kind of toytronic disco, its bouncy repetitions reminiscent of pinball bumpers. And "Monkeypuss" gets really weird, borrowing the jerky electro groove of Mu's "Paris Hilton" (another Fulton production) and dubbing and distorting it into a machine-shop pileup of Latin percussion.

Portland's YACHT, less polished than many of their labelmates, deliver a murky, post-punk version of disco that recalls the gutter eclecticism of the legendary Mudd Club; around disco's signature pulse they arrange whirring oscillators, dub effects and chants. The result (variously recalling the Slits, the Contortions, Liquid Liquid and A Certain Ratio) is at once futuristic and tribal. There's also something tribal about "King of the Witches," by Soul Jazz's Capracara, with thrums with cowbells, shakers and Latin-inspired electronic percussion. Inspired by disco, acid house and Carl Craig's evolving arrangements, it hurtles in pursuit of a state of trance, tumbling over and over before exploding into a final minute of pulverized chords.

There's plenty more in the catalog, especially considering DFA's co-releases with RONG Music, a New York label (founded by DJ Spun and Ben Cook) with a similar predilection for mutant funk and disco. Free Blood's material feels more overtly rock than what you generally find on a DFA 12", but it's often presented in far more disco-friendly versions by remixers like Barfly, Rub 'N 'Tug and Greg Wilson, who loop and edit and dub away, until what remains of the original songs presents itself like carved standstone. And as other catalog highlights attest — Mock & Toof's "Underwater," In Flagranti's "Meat-Packing Mix" of Woolfy's "Oh Missy" and Prins Thomases mixes for Scotty Coats & Wes the Mes's "Double Fisted particular — RONG can be wrong in all the right ways.