On Your Airwaves: Tune into Kojo Nnamdi's show today to hear Ian Mackaye discuss the Great Fugazi Online Archive. And if you're in front of a television this morning, check out Hairspray cast members on Fox.

Goin' Big: The organizers of D.C.'s Chinese New Year parade have big dreams, reports Monica Hesse.

Life in the Bookhouse: WaPo's Dan Zak hangs out in the Arlington Bookhouse, run by an 80-year-old and a 91-year-old, and closing in the next year or two.

Local Label Roundup!: In case you missed it, Fader magazine's December/January issue features a brief piece on D.C./Maryland-based electronic music label Future Times, along with a few other quality independent electronic labels you should get into. And yesterday, Windian Records gave us a glimpse into its release schedule for 2012.

In a city that often looks backward musically (we get it, everybody loves Fugazi and The Dismemberment Plan), the Future Times crew is all about pushing things forward. Overseen by Mike Petillo and Andrew Field-Pickering (of the duos Protect-U and Beautiful Swimmers, shown above), the local imprint brings together global psychedelia with warm, throbbing beats culled from early house and funk. The terms “new-age disco” and “aquatic techno” have been used to describe their polychromatic approach. With interest from media outlets such as Resident Advisor and the Fader and a growing roster that includes non-D.C. artists like Brooklyn’s Slava, Future Times has had a pretty big year. Protect-U and Beautiful Swimmers (pictured) toured Europe, and the label brought eclecticism and buoyancy to a ton of local live events, including the monthly Whale shindig at U Street Music Hall. Tonight, the gang takes stock of a banner 2011 with a holiday party at the same venue, featuring DJ sets from Beautiful Swimmers, Mondo and C Rob (Petillo and Chris Robinson of the Vitamin C party at Dodge City), and up-and-comer Jay Simon. The Whale is free and usually not too packed, offering plenty of room to let the trippy, tropical-infused vibes thaw your winter bones. 10 p.m. at U Street Music Hall. Free. (Joe Colly)

MORE LOCAL MUSIC

Locals Chain & The Gang (Ian Svenonius et al.) and Heavy Breathing (former members of The Apes) hit the Black Cat Backstage tonight. Let the primo stage banter begin! 8 p.m. $10.

Also tonight, Christylez Bacon plays the newly launched Clyde's establishment, The Hamilton. If you haven't scoped the new 24-hour eatery and venue yet, now is your opportunity. 8 p.m. $15.

MUSIC

R Street NW DIY space Subterranean A hosts even more exciting homegrown electronic dance music: Shimmery house-music trio Volta Bureau and Future Times universe-skimmers Protect-U and Beautiful Swimmers perform. Get ready to get glazed. 8-11 p.m. Friday.

Also Friday: Mike West says you should see Benny Golson at Bohemian Caverns. Empressarios at Rock & Roll Hotel. Pietasters and The Slackers at 9:30 Club.

Saturday: Weirdo folkers Woods at Rock & Roll Hotel (with Purling Hiss)—for some reason, this show inspired a Krautrock primer in Express. 9:30 Club hosts Penguin Prison and Big/Bright at U Street Music Hall. Exit Clov opens up for JC Brooks at Black Cat.

Sunday: Rapper Fat Trel's "Nightmare Before Christmas." Ruh-roh. John Davis (Title Tracks, ex-Q and Not U) performs acoustically at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

FILM

Stay home. Tricia Olszewski is unimpressed by Young Adult and A Dangerous Method. I am similarly bummed out by Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

COMEDY

DIY standup! James Adomian, interviewed yesterday on Arts Desk, headlines at Subterranean A Saturday. 7:30 p.m. $5.

The local spaced out electronica duo just released "Open Shadow," its latest 7-inch, featuring a lead vocal from Title Tracks frontman John Davis. It's beachy and syrupy in the Loggins & Messina vein. Or maybe it sounds like Seals & Crofts. Let's just call this Swimmers & Davis.

It's a pretty honest, if somewhat downcast, homage. "Step after step I've got the currents below me/trying to dance but all the rhythms have thrown me," Davis sings over a slick, sun-baked instrumental. The bass is slinky. The keys are woozy. Late in the song, a guitar solo is menacing and seductive. Do not listen to this song after Labor Day. Do wear white pants.

The 7-inch, which also features a dub mix of "Open Shadow" by Soft Rocks, is out now via Future Times. There are 500 copies, and no digital release. Buy it here; listen to samples of both sides here.

A fews days old, this. But it's a busy production day in the office and we could all use some cosmic grooves. Here's the latest video from D.C. electronic duo Protect-U, and it kind of reminds me of those trippy geometric montages in Donald in Mathmagic Land. The band, full disclosure, features very occasional City Paper contributor Aaron Leitko.

The group's latest, greatest 12-inch, "World Music," is out this month on Future Times.

Washington City Paper: How long have you been making music as Beautiful Swimmers?

Andrew Field-Pickering: I guess you're official when your first release comes out. So, I guess it was April of last year when our first LP came out. Before that, our bands toured together. I was and am in Food For Animals, and Ari [Goldman] was in Manhunter.

WCP: What drew you to electronic music?

AF-P: I've been messing around with this kind of stuff since high school. In Food For Animals, it was like brutal, unusual electronics, but there were some samples, too. Beautiful Swimmers is electronic, but we also draw from disco, funk, and cosmic rock, too. My parents were into Talking Heads, which definitely had an influence, but getting hardcore in house and techno has been more my thing. You know, when that wave of British electronica hit the states in the mid-'90s and it was on MTV, I was 13 and I thought that was really cool. That was pretty bad stuff initially, like that Prodigy album, but finding more awesome things with that as a reference point was pretty cool.

Washington City Paper: What's with the recent disco revival?

AF-P: People ask us what's the new thing with disco, but I was reading stuff four years ago where people were asking the same thing. I think it's getting more popular now—I guess more people are using that as a cornerstone of what they produce, with indie bands getting disco and house influences in their songs. There are more bands where certain members also DJ. Back in the early '90s, British bands especially started having drum machines and the bassist would also be DJ. It switched gears at one point, but it's switching back. Ari and I have spent so many years of looking for disco and house records, it doesn't seem super new to us. I think new people are latching onto it.

Actually, D.C. is super sick for finding crazy disco and house records. We've traveled around and gone record shopping different places, and D.C. is definitely one of the sweetest. We were just finding random records and not knowing what they were in the beginning.

WCP: What does the electronic music scene look like in DC?

AF-P: D.C. is cool because it's super tiny. A lot of people even who don't have crossing interests end up playing shows together in D.C. I feel like we fit in in DC amongst other things. In New York and L.A. there are enough bands for people to get in to super specific stuff—not just genres but subgenres and sub-subgenres. In D.C. there's not enough of it to get into super specific stuff, so a lot of different people end up in the same spot. We all came from punk bands in high school—I didn't start making house when I was 12 or anything.

We did parties at the Black Cat in 2004 and 2005, and I think there's a core group of maybe a couple hundred people who have latched on to our vibe, and that's really cool. I think we might've helped get certain people into that stuff around here—not everybody, but certain people—and that's another way we fit it. So, if you like that kind of music, you can come see Swimmers and we've got ridiculous examples of whatever you're into. If you like house, we've got crazy house. If you like techno, we've got some weird techno records. We like when people get into it and they didn't know about it before. Maybe someone heard about Lindstrøm on Pitchfork, then they find out there are so many more layers to that onion.

WCP: What does the process of making a record like this look like? Is it largely sample-based?

AF-P: There's definitely a lot of samples mixed with stuff we play. The first and last song on the new 12-inch have like four or five samples and us messing with keyboards on it. The second track is a straight disco edit. We try to make actual songs from start to finish, but they're also DJ tools. So, [the second track] "Give It All You Got" might not always match with the first song, but with us, you buy something you can DJ with.

We try not to use samples from anything good—we try to DJ records that are good as opposed to sampling them. Mostly we're trying to save parts from bad songs. Maybe we find a house record that starts playing and sounds like it's gonna be awesome, but then it goes into a weird sax part, so we say, "Whatever, let's take the drums from it." Sometimes you find yourself hoping when you hear a weird house song that it goes bad so you can use the drums, otherwise you just end up DJing with it.

You can catch Beautiful Swimmers' DJ night, The Whale, at U Street Music Hall tomorrow night, and on the third Wednesday of every month. Free.

This week, haterate spewed everywhere. The dudes behind Fan Death Records aren't impressed with D.C.'s music—and they named names. Check out what they had to say, and the 100-plus comments—angry, amused, confused—that followed:

1. Fan Death Records to D.C. Bands: "Stop Sucking"
2. Twitter Adds Local Trending; D.C. Tweeting Skews Scatological
3. Arts Roundup: Michelle Rhee at Sundance Edition
4. New Songs for 2010: Free Music from Wale, XO, and Future Times
5. The State of the Union for D.C. Newspaper Cartoonists

1. Boozing Along to Contra: The Vampire Weekend Drinking Game!
2. Teddy Afro, Ethiopia's Bob Marley, at the Armory Saturday
3. Arts Roundup: Are Vampire Weekend Jerks? Edition
4. New Songs for 2010: Free Music from Wale, XO, and Future Times
5. Critical Appreciation: Robert H. Smith, Arts Patron

Quickly, a few goodies for the first day of 2010:

• Rapper XO dropped his new album, One. One. Ten., today, and he's posted a digital version that you can download for free. Check back here next week for our review. The album's release party is tonight at K Street Lounge.
• Wale has a new remix of "Pretty Girls" featuring Raheem DeVaughn and Phil Adé. Grab it here.
• I've had these in my inbox for a while, and they're worth checking out: free live sets from the Future Times dance label's Maxmillion Dunbar and Protect-U (the latter features City Paper contributer Aaron Leitko). Protect-U's new "Double Rainbow" 12-inch is out now.

The physical object can be obtained from Clone, Rush Hour, Bookmat, while mp3s can be purchased via iTunes. If you're not ready to plunk down any change, the whole thing is streaming here.