Living It out

Living it Out" – perhaps the most unabashedly danceable song on Janine "Planningtorock" Rostron's DFA debut album W – comes on (that is to say, seduces) in just the right ways. The song is all addictive disco, with synthesized string skitterings and Rostron's voice purring out (she sounds like a futuristic Eartha Kitt here) a perfect melody that somehow gets even better at the chorus. It's pure pleasure upsurge from beat-driven start to pizzicatto end, the kind of song that lets you know that, amidst Rostron's many musical idiosyncracies, included is the ability to write a song that simply drags you out onto the dancefloor. Billy Lock – aka Felix Martin from Hot Chip – has also contributed a mix. His reworking starts off feeling deeply anticipatory, the beat pounding against disquieting bass pangs and a slow rising electric scribble, all of which serve to temper the original's carefree spirit. Denmark's When Saints Go Machine have transformed the track into a lilting, lovely five minutes of electronic pop – the song here has been remade into something both soft and fluid, with PTR's vocals raised an octave, so that they flow as smoothly as the new mix in which they sit. And Brooklyn, New York's Laurel Halo offers a complete renovation. She combines synth swells and washes into diaphanous, ambient layers of sound, then lets PTR's voice echo – in a way that seems both haunting and wanting – amidst those vast atmospheric conditions. - Kali Holloway