House Playlist: Metric, Salva & Grenier, & AlunaGeorge

Propulsive drums, dense synthesizers, and Emily Haines’s enticing contralto are a reminder of Metric’s refreshingly kinetic, potent side.

House Playlist: Metric, Salva & Grenier, & AlunaGeorge
Metric's new album, its second on the band's own label, is titled Synthetica. Left to right: Joshua Winstead, Emily Haines, James Shaw, Joules Scott-Key.

Metric, “Youth Without Youth.” Not to be confused with some sort of tribute to the 2007 Francis Ford Coppola film of the same name, Metric’s “Youth Without Youth” is absolutely brimming with the kind of devilishly cool energy that made the Canadian indie-pop foursome’s hypnotic “Black Sheep” the perfect pick for a pivotal scene in Edgar Wright’s equally mesmeric Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Propulsive drums, dense synthesizers, and Emily Haines’s enticing contralto are a reminder of the band’s refreshingly kinetic, potent side that they’ve yet to bring to an entire album’s worth of material. Here’s hoping their upcoming Synthetica changes all that. Mike LeChevallier

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Salva & Grenier, “Wake the Dead”/“Forest Floor.” If you trapped the spirit of classic house hits by Ralphi Rosario, Farley Jackmaster Funk, Marshall Jefferson, and Chip E together in a containment unit like the Ghostbusters did to Slimer, well, let’s just say it would be a pretty bumping Twinkie on the inside. Push the levels far enough on Salva & Grenier’s “Wake the Dead” and “Forest Floor” and you might come close to approximating that scene when the Con Edison rep is forced to shut down the grid, loosing every soulful “You Used to Hold Me” into the streets. Which is to say these songs feel a little more like phantoms than actual dance-floor bangers, but they’ll probably haunt your steps for a few minutes anyway. Eric Henderson




AlunaGeorge, “Just a Touch.” The song’s title hints at it, but the first 20 seconds confirm it: AlunaGeorge want to feel you up in your earhole. British R&B duo maxes out the treble factor with “Just a Touch,” a laidback love jam that matches Aluna Francis airy, mellifluous vocals against George Reid’s suitcase of vaguely erogenous noises, including but not limited to finger cymbals, finger snaps, thrown dice, synthetic tom tones, and a wiggly counterpoint melody that traces itself over the top of the mix like a centipede adrift on a puff of smoke. George establishes the “Touch” half, while Aluna’s coyness keeps listeners “Just a” little outside her vicinity. EH

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