professor murder

professor murder are a spastic dance quartet from brooklyn, who caused something of a sensation last summer with the release of their first ep, rides the subway. well, maybe "sensation" is a little hyperbolic - pitchfork loved it, but when i listened to "champion," i was less than impressed. chaotic to the point of being directionless, mumbled lyrics, and kinda repetitive, "champion" wasn't enough to sell me on the album or the band, and i filed them away in the "awesome artwork, mediocre music" section of my brain. see how cool the artwork is! too cool for school.
anyway, i can't really explain why, i felt the need to look up professor murder again over the summer. maybe i had been scrolling through my library and recognized the name, or perhaps i was colossally bored. in any event, i checked out their old website (it's down now), and decided to give the band another chance. this decision was due primarily to the fact that they had free songs available for download, and if i'm a sucker for anything, it's free music. so i grabbed this live set from pianos, five songs deep, from 2005, and gave it a few spins. well, you might've guessed this by now, but i totally dug it. this time, i filed it away in the "better than before, should blog about this" category, and promptly forgot about it until now.

live at pianos, 4/3/05 (.zip)
the mountain
(too much) gun talk
camron's new color (part 3)
champion
swingzilla

some other news about professor murder, if you're just joining their party: they like giving away shit for free. they have a big ole mixtape available at their myspace, and their new ep, on a desert island, is being released song by song through rcrd lbl, and the first song, "flex-it formula," has been available for about a month. no word on when the next songs will be posted.