In-the-know music fans have been sweating New York producer James Murphy for the past few years. The co-founder of DFA Records and the man behind dance deities LCD Soundsystem doesn't just have his finger on the pulse of modern music — he is the pulse. The rest of us just breathe accordingly.

Murphy makes people move. It's also accurate to say he moves people. His deceivingly complex rhythms provide the horsepower, while anthemic insights on the inner workings of the nocturnal diaspora are transcendent. No one else reconciles sincerity and irony with as much style or success.

That's what makes his recent deal with Nike so fascinating. That most reproachable of corporate giants asked Murphy to devise an extended song for the "Nike+" workout campaign, the swoosh's synergetic branding deal with Apple's iPod. He said yes, and "45:33: Nike+ Original Run" was born.

"This appealed to me because it was so anathematic to what youre typically asked to do as an artist: make easily digestible lumps of music for albums, or the radio, or whatever," Murphy said in a statement. "Id been thinking of the records I love in which people made one "song" that took up the entire LP and realizing that releasing something like this would otherwise be a virtually impossibility for me, I became excited when the Nike+ project came along."

We should all be excited. Murphy gets loads of cash. Nike attracts buzz that has nothing to do with sweatshop labor, and the fan who chooses to download the song from iTunes gets a 45-minute interstellar disco romp that will undoubtedly be one of the best "songs" of 2006.

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Otis Hart is an asap reporter.

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