++GIG REVIEW++
In the blue corner - CSS! Aided by mysterious voodoo dance techniques. In the red corner - Alphabeat! Bouncing all over the damn place like hyperactive children. It's gonna get mean, as Ric Rawlins referees the battle of the Pop Titans...
Call me a doomsayer, but every time I walk into the huge theatre that is Camden’s Koko, my nervous eyeballs are drawn up to the twenty mega-tonne mirrorball hanging over the audience. What if it’s hanging by a thread, I think. What if that thread’s been the victim of some subtle acid erosion, I think. What if...
Of course, trying not to think about it just makes it worse. So when a huge, metallic object swoops towards me in my peripheral vision, I look up with terror in my brain - only to see a TV camera whizzing through the sky. Tonight, you see, is an iTunes Festival Night ™ - and we’re all being filmed for posterity.
"Tonight CSS have hoovered up the audience’s love like a merciless ant eater..."
ALPHABEAT are one of those bands that bounce about like Saturday morning children’s TV presenters. They do this with such conviction that I actually begin rubbing my eyes and craving a bowl of Sugar Puffs. Thankfully, they also inspire warmth and genuine euphoria within the crowd - only a Dalek could remain emotionally immune to the regretful anthem ‘What Is Happening’.
Brazilian electro gurus CSS don’t have the tunes to follow Alphabeat – but they do have Lovefoxxx, the single most entertaining vocalist since Oliver Reed performed drunk out of his skull on live TV. She begins the evening wearing a huge mess of VHS cassette tape around her neck, and proceeds to dance as if it’s strangling her.
So who cares if ‘Alcohol’ sounds like Only Fools and Horses being sung by munchkins? Look at the singer – she’s pulling her hair! Jogging on the spot! Dancing like a mystic drunkard! And of course, manoeuvring her hands in the formation of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Yes, that old chestnut.
Tonight CSS have hoovered up the audience’s love like a merciless ant eater, and despite their lack of standout anthems, it’s been a well deserved victory.
++ Ric Rawlins ++
Artrocker rating: 3
The newest sounds as heard in the Artrocker Office and our Resonance FM podcast.
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