We met the charming and very lovely Alex Metric backstage at Wireless Festival a little while ago, and here are the results of our blossoming friendship with a man after our own hearts:

You can take a peek at the rest of our Wireless 2011 coverage by clicking on any of the words on this line. Generosity!

Muso’s Guide is working with Vodafone VIP across festival season, be it live-blogging, video-interviewing artists, Tweeting (we’re at @musosguide) or reviewing weekends in handy snapshot form.

Vodafone VIP is part of the VIP programme for customers, and Muso’s Guide is taking on official music blogger status at some of the summer’s hottest festivals. There are currently competitions running to win tickets to Latitude, T in the Park and Wireless, with more to come over the summer.

The Vodafone VIP experience extends further too – there’s a Vodafone VIP area across fashion, festivals and Formula 1 over the summer, a viewing platform giving customers shelter and brilliant views,  a recharging truck capable of charging 2,000 phones at once and selected apps allowing festival-goers to see what’s on and where, locate their tent via GPS and  plan schedules for their weekends.

Visit http://www.vodafone.co.uk/vip to find out more.

Boris Dlugosch

When I loaded the latest single from the German deep house producer Boris Dlugosch onto my iPod I was half expecting it to go into a state of shock due to the presence of such a foreign body on its hard drive. Not that I have anything against German deep house but I guess I always tended to equate it to doner kebabs, brilliant at 3am when you’ve had a skinfull but not so advisable at any other time. Which is why I was somewhat shocked when I heard ‘Bangkok’… and actually quite liked it!

This German barrage of bass kicks off with a rather straight drum beat and synth line, however this is just regular façade of what is, on the whole, a rather edgy track. The main hook sounds like a Smurf with a hollow wooden arse having its head slammed in a door whilst being smacked on the rear end with a drum stick, well it does to me anyway…..and I love it, and you should too!

The background to this Smurf-related assault is provided by a deep, crunching bass beat so dark and murky it should be housed in London Dungeons; equally brilliant.

However, this track also seems to have one foot in the past as a vintage sounding ascending synth line conjures images of old Daft Punk albums, before being crushed by the London Dungeon bass blob and Smurf assaulting drummer.

Thank you, Boris Dlugosch, for giving me my first pleasant sober experience of deep house, and thank you also for deciding what I should have for lunch tomorrow… extra salad and garlic mayo please!

Short Circuitry

A brief introduction is in order: with the UK’s dance scene in rude health and its influence currently being felt way beyond our shores, you have on your screen the first installment of Short Circuitry, a monthly column that intends to shed some light on a snapshot of some of the most exciting developments in electronic music over the preceding four weeks or so (in this case mostly from late June and July).

So it’s summer again – or at least it’s supposed to be. Given that I was summarily drenched last night on the way to a gig, arriving at the venue suitably bedraggled, and found that the ceiling at work had leaked this morning, I think it might be about time for a raincheck on this whole seasonal business. It’s with appropriate timing then that Hotflush duo Mount Kimbie have released their second EP this month, capturing as it does that ambiguity of mood that comes with this month’s dense, humid atmospheric pressure. Their first, ‘Maybes’, garnered a serious amount of attention well beyond the niche press usually associated with Hotflush releases, so the new one ‘Sketch On Glass’ comes with a hefty weight of anticipation behind it. Thankfully, it’s better. Far better, in fact – in the title track they have a slab of pristine electronica which successfully blends bass heavy breakdowns with mind-altering fragments of melodic shrapnel. What really captures about Mount Kimbie though is their insistence in remaining impossible to pigeonhole. Their music is evocative of, but never apes, a whole host of genre-spanning influences, often within the same track – ‘Serged’ moves from chiming ambience through a sparse halfstep breakdown overlaid with heavily vocodered vocals reminiscent of Mogwai’s post-Rock Action output. It’s a unique release, and an absolute essential; Kimbie are destined for big things.

Mike Paradinas’ enormously influential and consistently excellent Planet Mu label was never hesitant to align itself with the nascent dubstep scene, before and during its period of growth and emergence onto the horizon of mainstream consciousness, releasing some of the earliest tracks from Tectonic head honcho Pinch and maintaining strong connections with, amongst others, Vex’d and Boxcutter. Throughout the last year or so as its dynamic has almost invariably splintered in any number of different directions, Mu’s release schedule has acted as something of a barometer of the scene’s creative health; away from the smaller circulation of more specialist vinyl-only labels they’ve provided a wider platform with which to expose artists less well known outside of the Bristol-London axis, from Gemmy’s purple reflections on ‘Supligen’ to Ital Tek’s circuit-frying computer meltdowns.

The summer has seen them head off on a future garage trip, with new material from London Rinse FM associates Brackles and Floating Points and the debut album from New Yorker FaltyDL, Love Is A Liability. In an intriguing twist, given that it first emerged from the death throes of UK garage, the re-dissociation of dubstep’s rigid halfstep template has been less revolution and more evolution, a battle against the descent into comically ridiculous caricature-step and sterile minimalism. The music emerging out of the other end is even better for having passed through such a filter, packed with the sort of percussive and melodic intricacies that leave it poised on that tight threshold between control and chaos.

Luckily for us all, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern didn’t trigger an Earth-destroying black hole when it was switched on earlier this year, but Brackles’ ‘LHC’ is a pitch-perfect auditory approximation of the chaos that would have ensued if it had, razor-edged spiraling motif and unruly snare pattern gathering speed over a maelstrom of vacuuming bass. The airy two-step of Floating Points’ ‘K&G Beat’ is even better; picking up after the cataclysm recedes, its extended opening section hangs weightlessly somewhere between outer and inner space for a minute or so before its awkward beat jacks into the central nervous system, setting the synapses alight in rippling firework patterns.

FaltyDL’s Love Is A Liability is a fitting summer album, despite the uniquely British disappearance of anything so much as resembling summer weather by August – Drew Lustman’s spacious garage beats are lent a wonderful warmth by the emergence of ethereal, shapeshifting melody lines that encircle tightly each track’s rhythmic chassis. On album highlight ‘To New York’ these fractal patterns coil around and between one another, shifting back and forth as if pieced together from half-remembered snippets of early Warp bleep-and-bass and the hazy ambience of Amber-era Autechre.

Dance music’s ability to capture the memory of a specific place and time (and even attitude) was thoroughly explored on Zomby’s rave tribute’$ Where Were U In ’92?’ – even his name is that of a body reanimated and given new life with a blast of voodoo electrickery. Yet whilst last year’s ‘Hyperdub EP’ was fractured and disjointed, a Frankenstein’s monster of unquantised beat science and noxious, chemical motifs, this month’s ‘One Foot Ahead Of The Other EP’ shares a common aura with FaltyDL’s tunes, as previously ungainly rhythmic figures take a back seat to a propulsive post-garage shuffle. It’s compelling stuff, a total reimagination of his earlier work yet still brimming with Zomby hallmarks – from the mashed stumble of ‘Helter Skelter’ to the 8-bit flourishes that rear up in EP highlight ‘Polka Dot’ – and the finest thing he’s yet put his name to. It’s also the first of his releases to come out on CD – do your ears a favour and track it down.

The richer percussive freedom opening up within its confines has also had the knock-on effect of weakening the barriers between dubstep and house, most keenly felt in the tribal stomp of the ever-rising wave of UK funky. Martin Kemp (no, not that one), whose debut release ‘No Charisma’ appeared on his brother Brackles’ label Blunted Robots in early July, has just compiled a mix for the reliably excellent Sonic Router blog in which genre lines are dissolved entirely. What is left is a particularly potent recombinant strain of Africanised bass music that flits effortlessly from four-to-the-floor kick propulsion to a kinky two-step flow, all the while buzzing and bristling with nervous energy. It can be downloaded from Sonic Router here.

This month’s 12” on Berkane Sol pulls off the same trick; whilst Geiom & Spamchop’s ‘Cave Rave’ is an (admittedly fantastic) straight slab of skittish Orientalist dubstep, ‘Sirius Star’ on the flipside takes a house template and inverts it, wringing every last drop of vitality from restless percussive patterns.

Meanwhile, Hessle Audio head Ramadanman has been making his own peculiarly genreless music under the Pearson Sound pseudonym; his latest 12”, ‘PLSN’ b/w ‘WAD’ dropped on Hessle this month. The enigmatic track titles act as an indicator for the placelessness of the music within, which touches on techno and deconstructed vocal house whilst sounding like neither; both, ‘WAD’ in particular is primed for the dancefloor, but both are equally if not more compelling on a good set of headphones in a dark room, the tense build and release of icy sheets of industrial noise sending ripples down your spine.

Nowhere is the London house crossover connection more apparent than in the schedule for Rinse FM; mainman Geeneus has been making some serious ripples in the genre of late, in recent sets even dropping some crunchy tech-house and Proxy’s ultra-distorted ‘Raven’ – albeit given a twist of London soundbwoy rudeness from MC Tippa. But it’s Geeneus’ own productions which continue to shine – in celebration of Rinse’s fifteenth birthday last month they have been giving away a host of free tracks from close collaborators (via their website, http://www.rinse.fm/), the VIP mix of his own genre defining ‘Yellowtail’ being a particular standout. Taking the original’s minimalist template and stretching it until it breaks, the VIP writhes with snaking African drums and distinctive drawn-out synth slurs. It’s devastating, but still a slow builder when placed alongside his latest work with Ms. Dynamite. ‘Crackish’ is an exhilarating, adrenalised soundclash of call-and-response vocal trade-offs; Dynamite sounds off with more righteous anger than ever before in furious patois, vibing off a rhythm driven by a tightly syncopated cowbell motif of the like not heard since Soulwax’s cheeky ‘NY Lipps’. It sent shockwaves through Plastic People when Geeneus dropped it at FWD>> a few weeks ago, and rightly so. Hopefully it’ll see release sometime this century, but given the way things usually work out I wouldn’t hold your breath just yet.

Away from this straight-to-dancefloor material, Warp’s prolific beat scientist Chris Clark this month released his latest opus, Totem’s Flare. Last year’s Turning Dragon was an incendiary slice of acidic techno, and its more downbeat companion released the year before, Body Riddle, gains the accolade of being one of my favourite albums ever released on Warp, so the new one has a lot to live up to. It does and it doesn’t; there are a couple of lapses into a fairly straightforward style that doesn’t quite live up to the thrill of experiencing Clark at his most gut-wrenchingly impenetrable.

Nonetheless, if on Turning Dragon Clark played the role of King Minos, watching with perverse glee as his hapless prisoners were sent one by one into his ever shifting labyrinth to be devoured by the monster within, there are points during Totem’s Flare where he takes up the mantle of Theseus, striding boldly into its dark heart to experience the minotaur’s fury first hand. ‘Suns Of Temper’ drunkenly assaults the senses with incoherently aimed kicks and punches, and the aptly named ‘Totem Crackerjack’ does a good job of mimicking the sound of the inside of an acid casualty’s head: breakneck tempo shifts, schizophrenic breakdowns and serious acid bass pressure all add to a sensation of being absolutely wrecked. Still, to these ears Clark still remains best at his most intangible, during the drift of opener ‘Outside Plume’, reminiscent of Body Riddle’s high water mark ‘Matthew Unburdened’, or the eerie spoken/sung refrain of ‘Growl’s Garden’.

Little Boots

Pop and alternative music have a funny old relationship really. On the whole, there’s an uneasy sense of détente, all the while buttressed by a smug sense of superiority on the part of the ‘serious’ music fans, which occasionally gives way to blasts of outright snobbery.

But, we’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Well-executed pop music is a an appallingly underrated artform. Its purveyors, therefore, deserve to be cherished.

So step forward Victoria Hesketh, aka Little Boots. The latest in a seemingly endless line of young female singers emerging with Human League records in their hands and one foot either side of the line between pop and credibility. The BBC didn’t know just how prescient they were when they named her ‘Sound of 2009’. Still though, it’s a sight better than the slew of Adele-alikes who crawled out of the woodwork in 2008.

In what has rapidly become an overcrowded genre, Little Boots has left a pretty high watermark. Hands is a strong pop record. While it loses marks for occasionally coming across a touch formulaic, it regains them in abundance for the sheer potency of its hooks. Almost every song is a single in waiting, with an outrageously catchy chorus lurking around every corner.

At times the vocal delivery is so languid that it’s clear she knows the pace of the songs will carry her through. Other instances see her overflowing with girlish giddiness as she threatens to drown us in syrup. ‘Mathematics’ and its metaphor-laden sweetness should have even the most ardent Wolf Eyes fan smiling a little, whether or not they care to admit it.

All the while, she is safe in the knowledge that the songs are enhanced by the muscle of the backing tracks underpinning them. The electro flourishes give the record power and texture, and drive the choruses further into your skull.

Hands is surprisingly cohesive when you consider the raft of people involved in its production. Perhaps in a way though it’s consistency is also its undoing. At times it comes over a touch predictable. As good as ‘Symmetry’ is, the Phil Oakey collaboration is just a little too on the nose. And it runs out of steam a little towards the end as Hesketh’s constant reference to her heart wear a bit thin.

All of which is a shame, really, because the last couple of songs might leave you with the false impression that Hands is a bad album, when in actual fact it’s a very good one. The album may not be perfect, but it contains so many moments of unbridled pop joy that you can forgive it its flaws. It’s a tough act for the Class of ‘09 to follow in any case.

Royksopp

For a short while there, it was looking as though Röyksopp may fall into that “band from that car/phone advert” category.

One minute you’re revelling in the success of having 30 seconds of your kooky tune played everywhere, the next, you’re playing the daytime slot at a festival, watching the audience grow weary of your set, until you play “that song…from that advert…with the balloons”. Alas, Röyksopp have staved off post-ad obscurity with a glut of good tunage.

Their latest, ‘The Girl and the Robot’, is the second single from the Norwegian duo’s upcoming album, Junior. The pair have wisely enlisted the vocal capabilities of Swedish starlet, Robyn, who brings brilliant composition and a Kylie-esque sounding tone to the table.

Without delay the track kicks off with a driving beat and euphoric choral backing. The opening synthetic choral effect hinting at what Radiohead might sound like if they dabbled with electropop house music during their OK Computer time. The timbre is pulsing, robotic and continually builds to one of the most blissful choruses. The track’s delightfully camp, leaving you with a feeling somewhere between that of harbouring a guilty pleasure, and out-and-out camp adoration.

The simply delicious, yet awkward and ominous chord changes, and the use of string synths give this track a fresh and epic quality. Dance music commonly balances on a fine line of tiresome repetition, however, this track never goes stale. Due, in part, to the vocals, which concern the plights of a woman who’s enduring a mundane relationship with an individual resembling an automaton. It’s basic love song fodder, but who cares when it’s this damn good.

‘The Girl and the Robot’ is what the monotonous dance crap they play in clubs frequented by morons should sound like. We’re suckers for a good pop tune, and to use the parlance of the valley girl, this track is hot.

Fenech Soler

I suspect that King’s Cliffe is lacking in great electro bands, but at least they have one, Fenech Soler. Incidentally, putting Fenech into your image search engine brings up a lot of pictures of a 1960s erotic actress, so just be careful if you’re at work.

‘The Cult Of Romance’, while sounding like the name of an ’80s synth act sounds… a bit like an 80s synth act, but in the best possible way, great gritty keyboards, an awesomely dancey beat and hooky lyrics all pull the track together wonderfully. The track has a taste of Calvin Harris but with a lot more individuality and a bit more groove and lip smacking dynamics.  Never smacked your lips at dynamics? Listen to this and you might.

The vocals are spot on, in tune, simple (no R&B warbles here) and really just suit the whole vibe of this little gem of a track.  While most acts nowadays (God I sound old) are trying to ape ’80s songs and at best just sound like another track from that era Fenech Soler are taking in aspects of the decade, but twisting it into something contemporary and, dare I say it, very radio friendly.

The B-side, ‘Airbrushed’ is similarly 80s themed in terms of the synth sounds used, but feels much, much more like a future club classic, the beats are more suited to it, I’m not saying it’ll turn up on Cream 6548.9! or anything, but I can definitely see it getting some big dance floor play from DJs. If you like your music 80s themed, hell, if you like your music, check out Fenech Soler, you’d be a fool not to.

Junior Boys

2009 welcomes the return of Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus, more commonly known as Canadian dance act Junior Boys. Three years have passed since their last release, the critically acclaimed So This Is Goodbye. But can Junior Boys replicate their past success on their latest album?

Begone Dull Care fizzes into life with ‘Parallel Lines’, a slow meandering track which matches the traditionally light vocal of Greenspan with a cute, yet calculated synth pattern before the end of the track ebbs into ‘Work’ and the pace of the album makes an effort to pick-up, albeit ever so slightly. Next up is ‘Bits & Pieces’, and whilst this is amongst the most upbeat tracks out of the eight on this record, it’s still highly unlikely that you’ll hear this doing the rounds on the indie dance floor with songs from fellow dance pioneers Justice, Simian Mobile Disco or Hercules & Love Affair (for example).

The pace is maintained at the midpoint of the record, and ‘Dull To Pause’ is the first time that the lyrics really match well with the ambience of the track, offering a sense of urgency offset by a calmer veneer through some sharp rhyming couplets: “With every morning chore/you look around once more/so that your eyes will adjust/to all the grain and dust”.

It’s clear at this point in the record that Greenspan and Didemus’ modus operandi becomes clearer; long gone are the raw bleep-beats from tracks on the previous record, seen on ‘Like A Child’ and ‘In The Morning’, replaced with a softer, more understated feel. The production values have been vastly improved, meaning Begone Dull Care is a more polished finish than anything Junior Boys have released before, and several of the tracks are cleverly weaved into one another.

Lead single ‘Hazel’, and to a lesser extent, ‘The Animator’ are realistically the only two tracks aiming to prevent the tail end of the record from petering out, leaving the listener with a slight sense of disorientation between the alternate styles. Whilst there isn’t a bad track out of the eight on this record, there is a sense that neither end of the spectrum of moods covered seems fully willing to accommodate the other, leaving almost a disjointed feel.

What is often prevalent in this album and in the previous two from Junior Boys is that songs are peppered with lyrics which can be deliberately vague, which leads to the problem that it can be difficult to pick up on a narrative throughout; whilst in some aspects this is good (the listener is to an extent forced to derive a meaning that they can connect with) the overriding risk is that for a casual listener, large chunks of the record can almost wash away like sandcastles at high tide.

Begone Dull Care is not an album which strikes with its immediacy; but the rewards are definitely there for those prepared to invest some time in it. Whilst it isn’t quite the life-affirming follow up to So This Is Goodbye that some hoped for, this is a record which can combat the stresses of modern life, if only for roughly three-quarters of an hour.

Junior Boys - Hazel

Canadian duo Junior Boys have been honing an engaging blend of dance music for much of the decade now. Their debut album Last Exit was lauded by critics and they achieved something of a crossover in 2006 with ‘In The Morning’, the infectious track from their follow-up So This Is Goodbye. Forthcoming third album Begone Dull Care finds Junior Boys continuing to focus in on their sound; something that they have always excelled at is creating a mood across a whole record and their new album is lushly produced, with the beats crisp and immediate, and holds a few surprises along the way. However, at times, the songs themselves can flatten into a whole, occasionally failing to fully realise their potential; stuck between ‘pop’ songs and ‘dance’ songs, some tracks can’t quite become either and fail to register.

‘Hazel’ however, is not one of those moments; rightly cherry-picked to be the first single from Begone Dull Care, it comes glazed with just the right amount of retro dancefloor chic, coupled with the romantic longing of a great pop song. Jeremy Greenspan’s vocals have, in the past, been a little understated, even whispered, but here he gives the soulful leanings that had always been apparent a freer reign.

Over fuzzed synths, pulsating beats and urgent handclaps, he treads a fine line between soulful seduction and tense separation; the icy production and the chorus of ‘It’s a hard wait’ underline the fact that this is some distant dancefloor encounter. Riding on propulsive beats and a squelching synth break down, ‘Hazel’ fizzes with nervous, joyful energy. The whole thing breaks down and disintegrates, of course, as Greenspan gets closer and closer; ‘You get caught up in another night/And you hit me with those hazel eyes’. It’s easily the most immediate and upfront track Junior Boys have produced, and acts as a shimmering window into a record that hides its intricacies under a glossy veneer.

Orbital II

Rave culture emerged with such a bang in 1988 that most of its vast following was left in an ecstasy fuelled daze for the remainder of the decade. It wasn’t until the early nineties that some of the producers of the era’s finest tracks began to realise the artistic potential of the acid sound. After all, the warehouse parties weren’t about standing around watching men with long hair masturbate guitars. It wasn’t about image or attitude or ego. It was about the crowd, and it was about dancing.

The people responsible for so many of those classic records were faceless. Many of them recorded under multiple guises and were never featured on the cover. But after a few years the rave population was eager for times to move on. One of the first acts to unlock this potential, and realise the euphoria of a five minute anthem across an entire album, was Orbital.

Their debut album Orbital was mostly a collection of disparate tunes, including their epic masterpiece ‘Chime’, but mostly connected by the slightly tinny sound created by the era’s limited technology. The following year that technology had improved, and with it Orbital’s vision. Instead of lumping some tunes together, the brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll worked on Orbital II as an artistic whole. The songs segued into one another, taking the listener on a sophisticated rave journey. It never pandered to the build-climax-build-climax blueprint of so many of the more poppy dance acts of the era – the acts that took rave into the charts a year or so later. It was dynamic, layered material which planted the roots of techno, progressive house, and breakbeat. Moreover, it never compromised its strictly underground sound. After all, Orbital was named after the ring road around London where most of the capital’s illegal warehouse parties secretly emerged.

‘Lush 3-1′ chimes into life after the broody opener ‘Planet of the Shapes’. ‘Lush 3-2′ then picks up the tempo, descending into the dark euphoria of ‘Impact’ and ‘Remind’. The unrelenting surge of ‘Walk Now’, with its ominous didgeridoo, eventually make way for the funk piano and helicopter rhythms of ‘Monday’. With the strength of these epics it is easy to forget sometimes what comes next – the album’s final track and coup de grace – the peerless ‘Halcyon’. It is the quintessential dance tune; all delicate piano, floaty atmospherics, and beautiful female harmonies. And that bassline.

Despite ‘Halcyon’, Orbital II doesn’t feature many of Orbital’s big hits, but it is the key long-player in their career much in the same way Technique is for New Order. Regardless, because at the time dance fans hadn’t heard anything like it. The Hartnoll brothers had proved that the genre had legs beyond the 12″. You could argue Altern-8 or Acen were the first to pioneer an artist album of rave, but who remembers them? Orbital, despite a much publicised final career performance at 2005′s Glastonbury festival, are already being lined up for headline shows this summer. Think of a world without The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, or Royksopp. They all owe it to Orbital for opening the doors of possibility, and to Orbital II – rave culture’s crown jewel.

Filthy Dukes

This reviewer prescribes to the school of thought that music criticism should never rely too heavily on namechecking other bands when describing the sounds of a new album.

Granted, it can be a quick and easy answer to “so what are they like?”, but who wants to spend months in the studio carefully creating a collage of songs you think represent you, and that you enjoy playing, and you hope others will like, only then to hear the world’s critics explain to everyone how much it sounds like somebody else?

It is against the backdrop of this that the Filthy Dukes‘ debut long player, Nonsense In The Dark, must be appreciated. The London duo, real names Olly Dixon and Tim Lawton, are successful residents of the capital’s Fabric nightspot, where their cutting edge electro-eclecticism has earned them a solid reputation as dancefloor extraordinaires. However, they have gone about their debut with too many ideas and come out the other end with a collection of tracks all craving radio play but with no common thread. Such disparity may have paid off if the tunes themselves could hold their own, but sadly for the Dukes, most of them do sound like one of their peers, and nothing else, leaving me with no choice but to unwittingly offend them in the above maner.

‘What Happens Next’ borrows those hard guitar stabs from the slightly overrated MSTRKRFT, and come across as a poor man’s Justice. ‘Messages’ could quite easily have been one of the (many) forgottable album tracks from Caged Baby’s debut a few years ago. ‘Nonsense In The Dark’ would fit snugly on Fischerspooner’s largely ignored sophomore effort (except it has The Maccabees’ Orlando Weeks’ irritating vocal all over it). ‘You Better Stop’ is paid a compliment by sounding like it could’ve made the Chemical Brothers’ last album. ‘Somewhere at Sea’ is a quarter-decent stab at a Depeche Mode ballad. ‘Tupac Robot Club’ may have the best chance of achieving the group’s goal of hitting the charts, sounding as it does like Evil Nine on a very bad day without any weed. Strangest of all, ‘Light Skips Across the Heart’ reeks of that bizarre eighties collaboration between Giorgio Moroder and the Human League’s Phil Oakey.

Of course, sounding like other artists is no bad thing at all. To their credit, the duo have created a decently paced pop album of eighties synths and vocals, rave piano and atmospherics, and chunky breakbeats. But this was being done five years ago, and with more panache. Today, the niche the Filthy Dukes are trying to inhabit is already being majestically carved by the electro pop wholesomeness of Cut Copy and their slightly more bombastic Aussie cohorts The Presets.

By trying to sound like all of their influences, The Filthy Dukes’ own personality has gotten lost. In today’s diluted iEnvironment, maybe they should have pooled their efforts into making one stonking tune instead of stretching their talents across the increasingly outdated format of an album.