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Review: Emma Whitelaw
NEW York art-pop duo, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner, re-emerge
as kings of the dance scene this week with the release of their
second album Odyssey. Marrying high art, high fashion,
pop culture and, all importantly, pop music, Fischerspooner have
always proved their work to be the epitome of cool.
Their first album, #1, was hailed by NME as'the best
thing to happen to music since electricity'. A hard act to follow
I am sure, yet the 'difficult second album' falls nothing short
of its predecessor’s excellence.
With conceptual lyrics, experimental videos and a spate of cool
electronic tracks, Odyssey is an artistic journey sounding
like nothing before it!
Opening track and the first single lifted from the album, Just
Let Go picks up neatly where # 1 left off. Written
and recorded in one day, it features deliciously dark vocals and
a kick-arse guitar rift.
The stylishly crafted Cloud follows influenced heavily
by Warren’s love of the Cure’s unique chorus/post
chorus song structures.
Like the classic rock albums before it, the album is a bona fide
headphone album, layered with hidden sounds and ideas that reward
the close listener.
In particular, A Kick In The Teeth’s closing
bars are guaranteed to give a pleasurable mind fuck when listened
to intently.
Everything To Gain is blissful and airy, yet darkly
demonic. It is an especially significant specimen of just how
exquisitely complex Fischerspooner can be.
With lyrics written by the late Susan Sontag, We Need A War
is a satiric poke in the ribs of American (so called) democracy.
Interestingly, when the lyrics were presented to Casey, he claimed
he wasn’t comfortable with saying the word ‘war’.
Sontag responded: "You need to get confortable saying the
word war. Your president approved eighty billion dollars for a
war in Iraq yesterday."
Odyssey, then, is no mere dance album, it is cutting
edge culture.
Fischerspooner’s sound embraces the past; paying homage
to such greats as Pink Floyd and The Beatles, yet Odyssey
itself is light years ahead of anything in the UK charts today.
Electropop par excellence!
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