ACL FEST

Electronic LCD Soundsystem puts a charge into live performance

LCD Soundsystem plays from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Friday on the AT&T Blue Room stage.

James Murphy sounds terrible. "I feel terrible," he says. Well, the two often go together.

Murphy has the flu and it's making him sound cranky, exhausted and not quite there. But who can blame him? This is what happens when you go on tour for months on end — you try not to get sick, you stay up late, playing or making the scene, then you get sick and it doesn't go away. The man behind the electronic rock (or is that rocking electronic?) sensation LCD Soundsystem is in the middle of a European jaunt to support "Sound of Silver" (DFA/Capitol), LCD's second album and an odds-on favorite to end up on dozens of year-end top 10 lists. And if there's one environment that will keep you fluish, it's Belfast, where he's calling from.

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ACL MULTIMEDIA

• Photos: 1 | 2 | 3
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• Video: Scenes from Zilker on day 3 | Day 3 wrap | Day 2 intro | Day 2 wrap | The M.O. recaps day 1 | Welcome to ACL 2007
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REVIEWS

Bob Dylan | GLO | The Decemberists | Wilco | Billy Joe Shaver | Lucinda Williams | Common | Muse | Arcade Fire | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah | Björk | The Killers | M.I.A. | QOTSA | LCD Soundsystem | More reviews

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ACL FEATURES

• It's a wrap
• After fire, show goes on | Video | Photos
• Back at the studio...
• Destination: Festival
• Sound and Jury contest winner | Photos
• For Austin's under-20 Steps, long strides
• The National: An overnight sensation since 1999
• ACL meets ASL
• Fans, faith keep Shaver onstage after shooting
• Sharing the language of Dylan
• Hot Freaks and more: ACL after-shows
• ACL Festival: A look back
• ACL style: ACL veterans, I need help
• Björk: Independence is precious
• White Stripes cancel, Muse takes slot
• LCD Soundsystem's live charge
• Raul Malo's supper club jazz
• 'Supermoon' orbits the world
• He's with Dylan
• Going green for the fest
• A Dylan primer
• Full coverage

"This last European tour was almost entirely festival dates," Murphy says. While this is tough to do in the United States, where destination festivals are few and far between, it's par for the course in Europe, where three or four festivals are happening every week in multiple countries.

That said, LCD Soundsystem has become the talk of this year's American summer festival circuit. The full band's dance-rock surprises concert-goers who expect electronic music to be a guy with turntables and a laptop. The overall effect is watching a dude checking his e-mail on stage. But not LCD — with Murphy braying into what looks like a vintage microphone, the 37-year-old is pure ringleader.

Perhaps surprisingly, Murphy, who composes and records most of LCD's music by himself, doesn't take the live show into consideration when arranging his music. "We're a cover band," Murphy says, simply. "Figuring out how we're going to play the songs is a completely different process from recording them."

The band (or, rather, the musical idea of the band) has kicked around since late 1999, when Murphy, an underemployed indie rocker, formed the DFA production partnership/label with Tim Goldsworthy. The two produced scene-defining combinations of punk crackle and dance beats as the Rapture's "House of Jealous Lovers." Murphy launched LCD in 2002 with the utterly brilliant "Losing My Edge," a hipster's (tongue in cheek) lament ("I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks") and pocket history of subcultural cooler-than-thou-ism ("I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan/ I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes") set to an insanely catchy bass line (da-doo-doo-doodoo-da-doo). More singles and a full-length followed in '05, with "Sound of Silver" this year.

"The biggest difference about this one is that I didn't have as many songs in the bank," Murphy says, which is more than typical for album number two.

"I don't write on the road," he adds. "I write in my head and that's about it. No acoustic guitar or bongos."

He even sings on this one — the effect is strangely Bowie-esque, especially on the opener "Get Innocuous."

All of which reminds one that Murphy is that rarest of pop music animals: the artist who a) gets a second act to his career at all and b) produces a second act that's light years better than the first. Murphy played drums in indie rock also-rans Pony and Speedking. He's frank about those years and LCD's relationship to them.

"I sucked," he says. " I didn't have any discipline and no idea what I was doing. It was entirely me. I had a very fair shake back then."

And with that, James Murphy sounds like he's going back to bed.

jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926