"Hold The Line"; "Zumbi"

Two singles from Major Lazer, the new collaboration between recent popular remix DJs/producers Diplo and Switch (or Sinden) are available for free download on music blogs everywhere, and if these tracks show any inkling for what to expect from the debut album Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do, it's going to be one hell of an album.

The first single from the album, "Hold The Line," featuring vocals and rapping from Mr. Lexx and Santigold (who has become quite the trendy artist to feature on singles), is an example of the variety, ambition, and strangeness we can expect from the two DJs. It samples horses, phone lines, operators, and various other random things while keeping a quick pace with a rockabilly "Misirlou"-like background. It's crazy, it's weird, and it's extremely addicting and an all-around pleasure to listen to.

Playing up the bizarre side of things is the other single, "Zumbi," which is not actually on the tracklist for the album but should still be downloaded. Featuring incredibly distorted and mechanical vocals from Andy Milonakis, whose growth hormone deficiency leads to some incredibly creepy thoughts considering the subject matter, the track is pretty minimal in its elements (rhythm is kept only by something that sounds like a laser gun and a repeated groaning in the background) but so intriguing that it's hard to stop listening. The lyrics are both corny and bad-ass at the same time: the song is from the perspective of a zombie who repeatedly refers to eating brains as a sexual act. Some of the more hilarious lines include "you can't test me, 'cause I eat your zombie blood like Nestle Quick, and you'll suck my zombie dick" and "me, I'm zombie and me don't eat gays 'cause I don't like the HIV." At certain moments in the song (like the former of the two lyrics I just mentioned) Andy's voice dissolves in an infinite reverb loop: these are the big payoffs that make the song incredibly worthwhile.

The album drops June 16th, and I hope to get a copy ASAP.