We’re launching a brand-new free-entry clubnight called woo. at the Queen of Hoxton in London on Thursday February 18th [Gmap], featuring The Power Trio DJs (ooh, mysterious!) on the decks, playing:

My Bloody Valentine, Air France, Yo La Tengo, Memory Tapes, The Ronettes, Air, New Order, The Shangri-Las, Neon Indian, Vivian Girls, The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Summer Camp, Beach House, TV On The Radio, M83, The Knife, Iggy and The Stooges, Sonic Youth, Jimi Hendrix, The Radio Dept, No Age and more.

The PR has this bit of parodial wankery so we’re sticking it in here too:

woo. [wu?]
interj & n & vb
A less sycophantic and more authentic version of its descendent, ‘woo!’.

Do come.

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

So here we are, one of 2010’s most anticipated releases…but can Putney’s favourite geeky dance-pop musos deliver the classic (and possibly career defining) album many are expecting?

Things get off to a strong start with opener ‘Thieves In The Night’.  It’s all broody synth organ drones and a four-on-the-floor kick drum, which builds anticipation and excitement, as any album opener worth it’s salt should. Alexis Taylor’s instantly recognisable falsetto finally gets things going: “My friend once told me something so right, he said to be careful of thieves in the night.”

From here on, the track seems to be on an ever-upward pursuit for bliss and abandon, with layers of synths, beats and guitars being added on top of one another in a clever marriage of words and music, “happiness is what we all want.”  Lovely stuff.

Next up is the piano led demi-ballad, ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’, which stands out as one of the record’s more instant tunes.  In what seems like an attempt to remain “human” and “honest”, the band have opted for a distinctly acoustic drum kit sound in the intro and verses.  It’s not what you’d expect from a Hot Chip song, but then again surprising listener’s is one of the things they do best.

Pretty string lines and delicious rising melodies ensure that it won’t be long before Erol Alkan decides he wants to sinks his dirty electro teeth into this one, as there is a filthy floor filling monster hiding just below the surface.

* “Don’t give a shit about the cool kids”

It’s no surprise that the album takes its name from the first single to be released from the album. ‘One Life Stand’ is an instant Hot Chip classic.  It’s irreverent, completely mad and is filled with a seemingly bottomless pit of hooks.

The choreography on the video sums up Hot Chips’ “don’t give a shit about the cool kids” approach to their music and image, which has garnered the band such a devoted fan base.  What’s a shame is that this sense of fun doesn’t appear elsewhere on the album. A few more tracks like this, rather than the insipid ‘Slush’ or ‘Brothers’ and One Life Stand would be the first must have of the decade, rather than just the very decent album that it is.

Other highlights include ‘Alley Cats’ and ‘We Have Love’.  The first is more of an entity than a song and is quite simply one of the loveliest, most understated, tracks Hot Chip have written to date.  It drifts in and out of focus like a sunshine drenched winter weekend morning and contains one of the album’s rare moments of Alexis Taylor’s and Joe Goddard’s beautifully idealised duel vocals.

‘We Have Love’ will certainly be featuring in several DJ’s set lists in 2010. It’s subtle dance hall and dub step ingredients are fused seamlessly with Hot Chip’s uncanny ability to produce dark, obscure mantras, which demand to be played time and time again.

* “How come they don’t just play like that cool part through the whole song?”

Taylor and Goddard have clearly decided to save one of the biggest choruses they band have ever summoned for the album’s closer ‘Take It In’. The song employs a familiar song-writing trick of minor key verses and major key choruses, which reminded me of a scene from Beavis and Butthead where they discuss Radiohead’s ‘Creep’:

Beavis: “What’s going on? How come they don’t just play like that cool part through the whole song?”

Butthead: “Well Beavis, if they didn’t have like a part of the song that sucked, then it’s like, the other part wouldn’t be as cool.”

To say that about ‘Take It In’ is a little harsh, but you get the idea. The minimally melodic verses become more attractive with repeated listening and act as a perfect counterweight to the gorgeous falsetto chorus: “My heart has flown to you just like a dove, it can fly, it can fly.  Please take my heart and keep it close to you, take it in, take it in.”

The album still has room for Amnesiac era Radiohead in the minimalist electronica of ‘Keep Quiet’ and an attempt at a 90s dance pop revival in ‘I Feel Better’.  I used to live next door to a halfway house for young offenders and elements of this track certainly come from the same ‘Dance Anthems’ stock, which used to haunt me during the delinquents’ all-too-frequent all nighters. That said, ‘I Feel Better’ isn’t unpleasant, but as with a few moments on the album I can’t help but feel that it doesn’t quite reach it’s potential.

So back to the key question, is the album any good?  It’s certainly a strong addition to the Hot Chip oeuvre and a must for any fan however, I would still recommend 2006’s The Warning to any newcomers.  Key tracks ‘One Life Stand’, ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’, ‘Alley Cats’ and ‘Take It In’ are undoubtedly great Hot Chip songs, but they don’t quite reach the dizzying heights of ‘Over And Over’, ‘Boy From School’ or ‘Ready For The Floor’.

Perhaps Hot Chip are just too eclectic and experimental a band to write an album that will be widely regarded as a classic.  It’s unlikely they will ever write a record that will be universally viewed as a cohesive ‘whole’.  But perhaps that’s not the point. Their inventive and often risky approach to song writing means that not every attempt works as well as it might, but this is precisely why they are admired as one of the most unique bands of the past decade.

So anyway, dance your nuts off to ‘One Life Stand’, find your heart swept away by ‘Alley Cats’ and ‘Take It In’, play ‘spot the steel drum Leitmotif’ that runs throughout and prepare yourself for the brilliant remixes to follow.  This might not be a ‘classic’, but don’t be too surprised if it ends up on a few top ten lists at the end of the year, after all how many bands are capable of sounding completely out of place and in perfect harmony with their surroundings at the same time?

Deerhoof

December 8th 2009

Two confessions have to be made at the outset of this review. Firstly, previous to this gig, this writer was more or less completely unfamiliar with the work of the San Franciscan quartet Deerhoof. Secondly, having only just completed an article for this very website stating that “Anyone who misses the opportunity to see DIVORCE [tonight's support band] is, frankly, a fucking idiot”, he manages to do precisely that, arriving with the dying notes of this tremendous band’s, no doubt brutal and thrilling, set. How embarrassing. Fucking idiot.

Anyway, Deerhoof are swift to take to the stage, and what an odd bunch they look, awkward, gangly drummer Greg Saunier an interesting contrast to diminutive singer and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki, cute as a button as she is. It doesn’t take long for them to establish an agenda for the night’s proceedings, starting with the eccentric noise-twee of ‘Panda Panda Panda’.

The first few songs are mostly instrumental, and verge dangerously to that most lamented of genres, Jazz Rock. Now, it’s true that this is normally a hideous prospect (with a few notable exceptions), but the ‘hoof actually pull it off, with just the right amount of fun and melody to balance out the abstract rhythmic and tonal excursions. They synchronise movements, they gurn, Matsuzaki enacts the lyrics with child-like enthusiasm. It’s both genuinely interesting in terms of the music and the show provided. It’s hard to pigeonhole too. There are bits of Sonic Youth, Hendrix, Zappa, but even then, it’s a stretch to pin down the influences, and it doesn’t matter, because it makes for an exciting concoction.

The only real drawback is, at times, it almost seems like too much. Having said that, they seem aware of the potential for boredom with too much eclectic avant-garde play and know just when to pare things back. Deerhoof achieve a combination that would appear nigh on impossible on the page – noisy, melodic, experimental, charming, fun, interesting music and this is reflected in the performance. If at least a couple of those qualities don’t tick boxes for you dear reader, then there’s probably a chance that you don’t like music.

La Roux

November 16th 2009

You don’t need an introduction to La Roux (although, if you think that’s the name of the singer, I’m afraid you’re mistaken). You know all about the hits, and Elly Jackson’s quiff. If you don’t, well, just what rock have you been living under? What you might not realise is just how incendiary she can be live. This writer knew he liked Jackson and, mysterious producer, Ben Langmaid’s particular brand of poptastic angst before the gig, but not to the extent he left with.

The lights drop and the sound that engulfs the venue is deafening – not from the stage, but from the suddenly possessed (mainly female) youths that make up the majority of the crowd. The band (sans Jackson, and for that matter, the rarely seen Langmaid) takes to the stage before Jackson propels herself into the fray, to further rapturous shrieks and screams.

Tune after tune unfolds; ‘I’m Not Your Toy’, ‘Quicksand’, ‘In For The Kill’, delivered in a manner that belies the dual natures of Jackson’s persona – confident pop goddess and emotionally bruised chanteuse. What occurs during this intense and entrancing performance, is that she is in many ways a combination of two seemingly very different Eighties idols (of course imbued with a very distinct sense of individuality, to say otherwise would be something of a disservice) – Annie Lennox and Morrissey. She combines androgyny with a distinct type of femininity, a wholly magnetic and somewhat melodramatic stage presence. The fact she is in a duo and has red hair, a quiff, underlines the comparison (again, that is not to say she is not an individual icon in the making – she is anything but).

The light show might be dazzling, the presentation slick, but the wholly unchoreographed and, technically speaking, not entirely flawless performance of Jackson exemplifies her and Langmaid’s group as an honest and unmanufactured enterprise, which in turn makes La Roux all the more special. The encore is, somewhat predictably (it’s the only song they have left to play), ‘Bulletproof’, but it’s a perfect slice of pop to end a wholly rounded pop concert experience, hysterical shrieks and all.

Kistune Maison 8

Kitsuné Maison’s fashion-cum-music brand has become something of a weathercock for a shallow artistic valley hemmed in by electro pop on the one side and its cousin, electro-indie, on the other. Their previous seven compilations are awash with familiar names (Bloc Party, Wolfmother, Klaxons, Gossip) often remixed by other, equally well-known artists (Soulwax, Metronomy, MSTRKRFT), so that the entire back-catalogue resembles some sort of digitalised, cross border love-in.

Volume 8 is perhaps less knowingly on the button than many of its predecessors, but that may just be because Kitsuné Maison has become better at picking out future talent. The inclusion of the retro-feel ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ by Brooklyn’s The Drums (booked onto February’s NME tour if you missed their appearance in London in October) is a masterstroke, but there are other, more surprising successes.

Take AMWE’s ‘Friction Between the Lovers’, which would sound like the sort of bad Ibiza schmaltz they play on MTV Dance, were it not for the trebly, sawing riff and ultra-fuzzy bass that top and tail the 6am-on-the-beach female vocals. Siriusmo’s ‘High Together’ has more weight behind it, carved from a sequence of gothic chords, overdubbed with unidentifiable digitised shouting.

Admittedly, much of the album has serious overtones of late ’90s house flashbacks, not to mention hints of that flavour of European dance music that is both less cool and far more fun than their British counterparts might produce. True too that not every song will be to everyone’s taste – the opening oriental twangs of Le Corps Mince De Francoise’s ‘Something Golden’ left this reviewer cold, though the track does improve – but the good is by far outweighed by the bad. Kitsuné Maison continue to cements their position as a compilation series you might not always want to have on display, but you’ll always want to own.

Joe Goddard

Solo albums don’t have the most consistent of reputations. For every glorious escapade from  regular duties, there is often an overlong lamentable, directionless exercise in self-indulgence. Whilst the platform can lead to an exploration of previously unchartered territory, often what is unleashed is a cut-price replication of former glories, executed without the rigorous quality control imposed by fellow band members.

‘Harvest Festival’ is the debut solo offering from Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, and is characterised by dreamy but fairly unambitious noodly electronica, nodding to the minimal, low-key experimentation of Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92′ or the warm, soulful textures of Plaid.

Where the whimsical, lucid motifs forming the main part of ‘Pear-Shaped’ and ‘Strawberry Jam’, are pleasantly unassuming, it quickly becomes evident that the simplicity of these hooks is rarely enough to sustain momentum or concentration. The evocative playful drama and wit of Hot Chip‘s ‘Over and Over’ and ‘Ready For The Floor’ is largely missing from these inelaborate electronic workouts, and the album only serves as a subtle companion piece to Goddard’s main project’s back catalogue – bare in an unsatisfying sense rather than a stark, intimate or engaging one.

Harvest Festival serves to demonstrate how Goddard’s glitchy, house-indebted template is best enjoyed as a facet of his band’s far superior whole, and although effective in exemplifying the role he plays within Hot Chip, is hardly an essential exhibit. ‘Half Time Oranges’ reduces the tempo down to Nathan Fake-reminiscent shoegaze, yet frustratingly comes to a premature halt 2 minutes in, despite promising to progress into a grandiose soundscape. ‘Lemon and Lime (Home Time)’ is led by Goddard’s hushed tones and is as close to memorable as this album stretches. Lacking the passion to truly come alive, or the romping danceability of the day job, the album suffers from a melodic impotence that renders it unexceptional and ordinary and rarely transcends above demo level.

Plodding rhythms, obvious progressions and towering predictability hint at the idea that this collection exists for Goddard himself equally as much as for anyone elses benefit, and it’s difficult not to remain unnourished by the fruits of his labour. Decidedly lacking in innovation, but Hot Chip return in February…

The Toxic Avenger

Simon Delacroix, better known as The Toxic Avenger has released another electro-thrash single (although from what I’m hearing it would be better coined electro-trash for the 4 minutes of pain endured by my ears!).

‘Toxic is Dead’ is missing a strong bass-beat and as such seems weak in comparison with other tunes in this genre. Not sure this has the “colossal bass lines” it claims to have and I feel it’s unlikely to be the huge hit the label may well have dreamed of! The track is designed for audiences to lose themselves in, but this is not possible until at least 2 minutes into the tune, prior to this it’s just a mass of noise.

The so-called melodic rage of this track is indeed hair-raising but not in a good way. The screaming synths may indeed make you lose your mind – quite literally. The orchestrations and pulsating rhythms unfortunately do nothing to pull this track up – it is certainly a sincerely sinister, lost effort.

If these are the sort of tracks by which the electro community benchmark future pieces of work my heart goes out to them, for they have been lulled into this unbelievable drivel replicating something thrown together in the bedroom of an acting-out teenager – grow up and put some real weight behind your tunes.

Chromeo

Aah… the 1980s. Rabidly bonkers women prime ministers, Monster Munch, Rubik’s Cubes, Steve Martin being funny. Musically, an era of indisputable groundbreaking heavyweights and also some vacuous disposable tripe. Chromeo, an electro duo from Montreal, have decided to cobble together a mix from the latter.

But hang-on, that’s not to say there’s nothing to enjoy here. It becomes apparent that these chaps are applying the nostalgic irony with shovels. These tracks have travelled so far through the full digestive tract of naff-ness that this compilation actually comes out smelling of roses, when it could (and perhaps should) have been the exact opposite.

If you’ve been waiting for Leo Sayer to appear on a DJ Kicks mix, then your patience has finally paid off. Even the bubble-haired buffoon can be stomached when he bizarrely adopts an Al Jolson voice for the funk-lite ‘Easy To Love’.

There are rare occasions when singing in French is acceptable and cheesy synth pop is one of those times, so the inclusion of a few such tracks helps with the tone of the set. The music is so bolted to a specific era that you can almost see the sparks from the static from the manmade fibres on the dancefloor.

We are showered upon by countless cascading synth arpeggios, underpinned by beats so plastic that they should remain in landfill sites rather than ever be recycled. But this is the point and it almost becomes a voyeuristic trip in the halls of a history we wanted to forget, but couldn’t remember why.

And it appears that in the 80′s we were consumed with showing how much we ‘need’ and ‘want’ each other and how ‘hungry’ we are when we simply wanted a shag. We even get to ‘cruise down loveland’ before we ‘set ourselves free’ now and again. Morrissey and Marr this is not.

How long the wry smile on the listeners face may persist is debatable, but Chromeo have done the dirty work for us by digging deeper than could be expected into the bargain bins and charity shops of the world to compile this selection. There was a very good reason we forgot the names of such artists as Donna Allen, Pierre Perpall and France Joli, but this is a guiltily enjoyable excuse to witness their artistry once again.

Katsen

On first impression Katsen resemble the sort of band that might soundtrack Nathan Barley, were Chris Morris and co to make another series of the underrated sitcom. Katsen are knowingly quirky, and they make awkward sounding electro-pop a little like Hot Chip and Ratatat minus the mojo, only more entrenched in the eighties sound.

In many ways this is Dunce Cap Dance (© 2009 Richard Wink), because it sounds like it was made by people that are ‘challenged’, and that it is almost impossible to dance to. But you know what, I like it. I like it because there is a lo-fi genuine charm to the retro keyboards and synths employed, and for me the icing on top of the cake is the pleasing cover one of the crowning moments of Surfer Rosa, ‘Cactus’. If you can make a good fist of covering a Pixies song then you are onto a winner.

The duo behind Katsen, Chris Blackburn and Donna Grimaldi blend together well, neither are particularly talented vocalists but their uncomfortable cool comes over nicely, jarring straight away with the coordinated casio bleeps and Atari/Commodore riot jam of ‘Lets Build A City’.

At their most effective Katsen produce brilliance in the form of the crusading ‘Chequered Flag’, the domino scuzz beat of ‘Island Is An Island’ and the excellent Germanic robotic title track. However when it goes wrong, it goes very badly wrong. ‘I’m A Doctor’ borders on being an abysmal joke; ‘What You Want’ is just plain lazy Coin-Op dross.

This album is in many ways like a bunch of roses, primarily aesthetically pleasing yet possessing a few painful thorns.

Cult With No Name - Careful What You Wish For

A few listens in to this second offering from London duo Erik Stein and Jon Boux, a.k.a. Cult With No Name, I’m still struggling to find anything interesting about the album to tell you.

It’s mostly a male voice singing and a piano playing. The two parts are by two different blokes, with Stein singing (sometimes sounding like Robbie Williams, and on the poppier moments more like the Pet Shop Boys) and Boux prodding away listlessly at the piano, with some moodily atmospheric swirly stuff going on in the background on some of the tracks and, even more rarely, some electronica stabbings that sound like the basic settings on a Casio keyboard for toddlers. And not in a good way.

There’s nothing to lift it beyond the mundane. Stein’s lyrics are mostly trite platitudes, the melodies samey, and the swirls of sound uninteresting. It’s not awful, it’s just dull. It is possible to tap your foot along, even to concentrate on it for a few seconds at a time before boredom inevitably sets in, but it’s too amateurish to be taken seriously, and not pleasant enough to be simply background music.

Cult With No Name have bedroom project stamped all over them. Two friends with big ideas, but without the talent to realise them. Careful What You Wish For is full of half-baked premises, pieces of sound that with the right backing might work, but that fall flat in this setting.

A smattering of violin in ‘Something Better Than I Know’ and a bit of guitar in ‘She B.C.’ can’t lift the monotony in the middle of the album, and by the horrible cover of the Stranglers’ ‘Golden Brown’, any smidgen of interest has leaked away.

It’s not possible to pick highlights or even lowlights from this effort, as none of the tracks are distinguishable from each other. It’s just a big slushy mish-mash of unformed sound, and it’s really not at all worth an hour of your life. Expect something by the Cult With No Name to adorn a car advert sometime soon. It’s that kind of banality.