Django Django – Django Django

Django Django’s skillful blend of genres and eccentricity led us to name them our top act to watch out for in 2011. They had only released two singles back then at the tail end of 2010, Storm and Wor, but we were convinced their forthcoming debut album would find them a wider audience.

Turns out we were a couple of months out, with their debut self-titled album being released a little later than we thought in early 2012.

Good old fashioned pop with some modern art rock sensibility is key to Django Django’s appeal. Storm and the insane Duane Eddy-meets-astronaut-meets-Cairo market trader single Wor are included and are immediate standouts.

But there’s plenty more pop up the sleeves of this London based band that met while studying art in Edinburgh. The slower, more experimental Waveforms is another great single, as is Default with its unshowy but effective chord riff.

Firewater, with its blend of new wave and folk is sure to be another single as could Life’s a Beach, where the band’s love of 50s riffs is taken to a new level.

What makes them so interesting is the inventiveness and sense of fun. As the NME pointed out this week they are “an alternative oasis in a land of indentikit indie.”

Of course that is partly down to the NME insistence in promoting indentikit crappy indie music for the last decade rather than Django Django being the savior of modern UK indie music.

Others such as Field Music, Special Benny and one of our current favoutires Free Swim have been blending witty observations and inventive genre crossing pop in the niche land of ‘indie’ for a while now already. Django Django can safely be added to that list following this solid debut, which apart from a couple of fillers in Hand of Man and  Zumm Zumm is as odd and good a pop album you will hear all year.  Shame its taken so long for the likes of NME to discover them.

9/10

by Joe Lepper

 

 

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