Two Door Cinema Club

Technically Two Door Cinema Club are not a ‘new’ band as fans of the fantastic single ‘Something Good Can Work’ from earlier this year will testify. However if there is going to be one ban d who bring the good times to 2010 then it’s going to be these three guys from Belfast.

Their forthcoming debut album landed in the Gigwise office a few months ago and wowed everyone within earshot. Fast paced and pop to it’s very core the songcraft in this band is strong however they never take their eyes off the dancefloor for a second. Tracks like the new single ‘I Can Talk’ are going to see people cutting a rug, shaking it out and other outdated phrases for dancing all the way though next year.

Like The Inbetweeners meets The Rapture Two Door have a sense of giddy adolescent abandon mixed with a massive groove and urge to get people moving. Catching up with the band recently they agreed that their music is best experienced live, “Playing live is what we love to do most. We love to tour and take our music wherever we can so you can always expect to see us having lots of fun and injecting a lot of energy into our performances. We hope that if we're having fun, then other people will bounce off those vibes and have a good time too. Most of all, you can expect a good dance.”

As the band are signed to now legandary label Kitsune you can expect to see remixes a plenty clogging up your Hype Machine charts and more than a few Warehouse party appearances too. The band themselves are delighted with hooking up with the French taste makers, “Our music has a certain dance quality to it, obviously not as much as other some Kitsuné acts but we get along really well with all the Kitsuné artists we play with, we've made some good friends, and we think the shows always have a really good vibe.”

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Kitsune Maison 8

French label and fashion house Kitsune have spent the best part of this decade curating their own compilations that have acted as a sort of ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ for hipsters. Now onto their eighth collection the name is a brand and recognised as breaking the biggest names in electro-pop and providing a launch pad for those looking to cross over into the mainstream.

On the strength of this effort however Kitsune might be losing their cultural cache quicker than the electro-blog-house they bore, bred and helped mutate. Forgoing their previous tactic of mixing the tracks for the listener this array of tracks feels superfluous and tacky. The album certainly does have some plusses though, no doubt about it. From Memory Tapes trippy sand dune inertia on ‘Bicycle’ through to Midnight Juggernaughts charming refusal to let go of the techno threshold Kitsune show that they still know how to string together the best sequence of party jams this side of Berlin. They also show their keen eye for a future star too with guest spots from label starlets Two Door Cinema Club and Delphic. The Molineux remix of Two Door’s ‘I Can Talk’ takes the peppy sugar rush of the original and makes it a intercontinental strut with melodies interspersing hooks and a killer breakdown. Delphic meanwhile still sound a bit like Keane going on Stars In Their Eyes as New Order but as long as they write songs as good as ‘This Momentary’ success won’t elude them for long. Finally the whistling Ayrian poster boys of The Drums purse their lips and blow all over ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ which rides the wave between infuriating and undeniable perfectly.

That’s the good though, the bad is so much worse. It’s the sort of thing a Nathan Barley reference toting naysayer would hold up as an example as all that is wrong with Warehouse parties and Hype Machine overkill. From Crystal Fighters to Heartsrevolution by way of Le Corps Mince De Francoise there is more filler in ‘Volume 8’ than a typical ageing Hollywood star. There is something so cheap and disposable to this music when it is done badly that by three quarters of the way through this hour long record you actually start to become a bit depressed. Much of the reason 2009 has been dominated by acts such as La Roux and the ride of Urban Pop like N-Dubz is that indie guitar bands over spent themselves and pushed people to breaking point. In much the same way Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight acted as a back breaking straw for commercial indie this lacklustre Kitsune outing reflects the demise in a musical style that has dominated the underground for years. From Klaxons to Simian Mobile Disco so many have benefited from the rise of Kitsune that a fall was inevitable and collections like this show why the appetite for dub and bass acts like Joy Orbison and Gold Panda has risen to mouth watering levels recently.

If this is the best Kitsune have then they may well need to go back to the drawing board and start over. If it isn’t then why didn’t we get to hear it instead of being left with this rag-tag bunch of club kid hangers on?

5/10

DrownedinSound.com

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New Music Monday

For Gigwise.com

Any new band worth their keep has been in Austin, Texas this last week trying to stir up the suits interest, excite the blogs and avoid sunburn. The annual Texan industry scrum always propels a few select bands forwards and this weeks NMM pick Girls are one of the hottest names to drop in Austin right now. By the time you read this however the festival will be over and the bands flying home with bloated BBQ stomachs, read on to see what they are up to this week.

Girls

They might look a bit like Hanson but don't let the flowing blonde locks fool you- Girls are a special band. The San Francisco foursome are one of a host of great Californian groups around at the moment (The Oh Sees, Magic Bullets, Wavves) and arguably the pick of the crop. Their sweet acoustic pop is augmented by lead singer Christopher Owens jerky Elvis Costello-esque vocals and their laid back pop is perfect for the coming Summer months. 'Lust For Life' sounds like a lost classic, a sort of upbeat Elliott Smith or Bon Iver if he got a surf board and had recorded his album on a beach instead of a log cabin. As a bizarre juxtaposition Girls also deal a fine line in feedback heavy noisepop as shown on last years single 'Hellhole Ratrace' and 'Morning Light'. Whether this more aggressive edge comes to full fruition on their debut album due soon we'll have to wait and see.

Girls Myspace

Two Door Cinema Club

Not to be confused with Birmigham's Sunset Cinema Club are Northern Ireland's Two Door Cinema Club (honestly, it's getting ridiculous). I'll let them off however as Two Door are making the most joyous racket in the world right now. There is something so unashamedly pop and sugary sweet to what they craft that it would be futile to even try and resist their charms. Their debut EP 'Four Words To Stand On' Promptly sold out as soon as it was released in March of last year and the band have since released another single, the similarly infectious 'Undercover Martyn'. As and when the press clamber onto Two Door much will be made of the fact they don't have a drummer (shock, horror) but the drum machine element of their sound is minimal. They don't have the cold sounds synonymous with electro because they smother them with huge choruses and melodies. The feeling they could be the new Wombats niggles slightly but you hope fluffy mascots, wacky behaviour and Bridget Jones are not on their minds. Two Door Cinema Club release their next single 'Something Good Can Work' on the peerless Kitsune on March 30th and is available to download now.

Two Door Cinema Club Myspace

5 to Download

1. Little Boots- New In Town (Fred Falke Remix) Taking the hype Queen's oddly maudlin new single Falke turns it into a relentless disco stomp. This will slay dance floors in a few months time.
2. The Dead Weather-Hang You From The Heavens Jack White side project #257 sees him hook up with The Kills Alison Mosshart for a garage and blues blast. Unsurprising but irresistible all the same.
3. Dum Dum Girls- Jail La La Another C86 revivalist to add to the list. This tale of hard labour is based on real life events and erases all the pop meets prison memories Akon left us with on 'Locked Up'. Almost.
4. Hatcham Social- Murder In The Dark This four piece released their debut album last week, this, the lead single from the album is a swaggering piece of pop noir.
5. Copy Haho- Pulling Push Ups This Scottish four piece are pariahs against Daily Express journalists in their spare time but when on band duty make upbeat indie pop of the highest order. Taken from their 'Bred For Skills & Magic' EP.

Debut albums out this week

Leeds quartet Grammatics release their self titled album. Ambitious, emotive and free from restriction it's a required purchase. Elsewhere Manchester based folk chanteuse Karima Francis lets her album 'The Author' out into the world.

On tour this week

Florence and The Machine play the Royal Albert Hall for Cancer Research (Monday), Official Secrets Act play in London, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds and Hull, Dananananaykroyd play in Hull, Coventry, Oxford and Cardiff with Calories and Me My Head, Kid Cudi is in London, Glasgow and Manchester (The hip-hop trinity) and Pulled Apart By Horses begin their first headline tour with dates in York, Middlesborough, Oxford, London, Guilford and Brighton. Playing one off London shows are Chew Lips, Your Twenties, An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump and Lissy Trullie play one-off London shows.

Video Of The Week

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