CITY OF SATELLITES
The Spook
(Hidden Shoal)
Fragile, frail UK-ish post-rock is the genre that, never having found full favour, never really dies either. On ‘Moon in the Sea’, which opens The Spook, amorphous synthesiser drones, widescreen 80s drums, spindly Durutti Column guitar and wispy forlorn female librarian vocals do their morose thing with a flair and intensity that could come straight from Bark Psychosis circa 1994 (or Piano Magic circa 1999, or… but I digress). There’s a fair amount of mediocre material in this vein; City of Satellites rise above the stodgy middle ground by virtue of the music’s crystalline sharpness, which suggests a musical sophistication belied by the relative sparseness of their approach. The rest of this three-track EP contains just enough variation (opalescent synth arpeggios and baleful post-punk bass on ‘Sleeping Disgrace’; amorphous shoe gazer blur on the title track) to suggest that they could become very good indeed. I hope they bring more hand percussion next time.

THE JEZABELS
Disco Biscuit Love
(MGM Distribution)
‘Disco Biscuit Love’ bases its slightly grim new wave disco stomp around Gang of Four-ish live drums, excellent piano, New Order bass churn and an intense vocal performance that builds effortlessly from restrained alto to slightly shrieky soprano in a manner that reminds me of Pat Benatar. Ms Jezabel-the-singer may not be pleased by that comparison but I mean it as a compliment. My main issue with ‘Disco Biscuit Love’ is that it’s pop about disco but not really disco-pop per se: The Jezabels probably think this is rather clever, but all I can hear while ‘Disco Biscuit Love’ is playing is how awesome it would be if Jacques Lu Cont got his hands on it and turned it into the space age avant-gay disco epic it deserves to be. But all is not lost: art-phag and sad-indie types caught in a love/hate relationship with populist dance music will love the original as is, and for once they’re half-right.

THE TING TINGS
Shut Up And Let Me Go
(Sony/Columbia)
The Ting Tings should be thankful for the existence of Lady GaGa and Katy Perry, which prevents them from walking away with the prize of most hatefully obnoxious new pop group in 2008. It really upsets me how stuff I usually like (shouty, shallow, dancey femme-pop) is trending so hard toward the sub-par at the moment. But that’s a rant for another occasion. In this car crash of a milieu, The Ting Tings are kinda like the new Republica, i.e. too ridiculous to really hate. Its lame-o megaphone catch-cry approach to vocals notwithstanding, ‘Shut Up And Let Me Go’ is more forgettable than ‘That’s Not My Name’, which may or may not be a bad thing - all I can think of while listening to its ‘Rock The Casbah’¬-style stomp is how Grand Popo Football Club used the same sampling source material to much better effect on the superlative ‘Men Are Not Nice Guys’.

LE NOIR & MERITON
Trip Soul
(International Deejay Gigolos/N.E.W.S.)
Several years ago DJ Hell did an excellent DJ mix in the Misch Masch series which joined the dots between the then-waning German electro house sound and primitive Detroit techno, for a chilly, melodic mix whose grandeur and austerity managed to avoid the obvious temptations of either cheap glamour or emo wallowing. Nothing came of this, of course. This non-fruition makes me terribly sympathetic to the substantially stern synth-chords and forbidding bass drone of ‘Legends’ (released, of course, on Hell’s label), even if it does nothing that wasn’t done better by Gavin Herlihy’s ‘Machine Ate My Homework’ on Hell’s mix back then. The more tumultuous, intense bass thump of ‘Trip Soul’ probably makes for the better track, but it doesn’t vibe off my nostalgia for what could have been in the same (quasi-romantic) fashion. Still, this is a nice little tech house 12-inch for everyone who likes their dance music melodramatically “foreboding” rather than actually foreboding.