Mike Powell chips in. re. the Klaxons--likes the record, hates "the rhetoric"

See, if he means the stuff the band themselves spout, well I kinda think that's how UK bands should be--mouthy but confused, fired up by having read a lot of stuff they've not properly digested. In that respect they do remind me a bit of Manic Street Preachers, who very early on I did kind of fall for as rhetoricians (only to become increasingly aghast at, as actual music makers).

The current (jan/feb) issue of XLR8R is well worth checking out: various pieces on things going on in current art and design that draw inspiration from rave and/or psychedelia, a piece on Myths of the Near Future producers Simian Mobile Disco, and the Klaxons as the cover story, an interview done a little while back before they started to concertedly disown the Nu-Rave concept. And it's a good piece with plenty of that sort of garbled autodidact stuff, e.g. on “Atlantis to Interzone”, an explanation from Simon Taylor:

“It’s about two kinds of weird non-spaces. There’s Atlantis the lost city, and Interzone, which is like a William Burroughs mind-space. I guess it’s kind of like trekking through your head from place to place. The idea of young kids singing along between these two places that didn't really exist was kind of funny.”

And a useful musical self-definition from Jamie Reynolds*

“We wanted to make organic dance music. All the dance bands relied on electronic programming and drum machines. We wanted to take that and give it a human element. The sort of breakbeats that were used in tunes in the early ‘90s, we take those beats and recreate them on drums… It’s about taking an early-90s approach but making that into apocalyptic pop songs”.

Taylor adds:

“We’re looking for that sort of early-90s euphoric feeling, but not necessarily that sound.”


* eerie isn't it how if you combine the names of the two main people in the band it becomes my name...