July 11, 2008

Various Artists

Kitsune Tabloid

8 / 10 Digitalism make up for their damp squib of a debut by showing off their record box.

They’re explosive live. They’ve written two stone-cold anthems in ‘Pogo’ and ‘Jupiter Room’, and one of them has a great haircut. It’s enough to base a career on. Just ask Justice. Despite this, Hamburg’s Digitalism, compilers of this first instalment of the ‘Kitsuné Tabloid’ mix series, have yet to achieve the profile of Soulwax or Simian Mobile Disco. That their debut album, ‘Idealism’, lacked the fizz-bang-fuck-off energy of the best noise-driven new rave can’t have helped. It was full of good ideas but it was too long, it had too many self-consciously epic tracks, and it rarely deviated from a narrow, EQ-busting rock’n’rave spectrum of sound. Now, here’s a chance for Jens Moelle and Ismail Tuefekci to prove their sonic chops, and show that they’re listening to – and learning from – the right records.

Which they do in style. From the disco highs of Hercules And Love Affair’s ‘Raise Me Up’ via gloriously camp ’80s B-boys Jonzun Crew, to the brilliant pop-brutalism of Proxy’s ‘Dance In Dark’, ‘Kitsuné Tabloid’ is confident, clever, wide-ranging, cohesive. It doesn’t linger, either. Whether it’s contributions from Hot Chip, Late Of The Pier and Calvin Harris or leftfield gems from DFA’s Holy Ghost!, Zongamin and Siriusmo – the strutting electro-funk of ‘Diskoding’ – every track is given just long enough to pout and shine, and no longer. Can Digitalism bring that light ’n’ shade, that easy joie de vivre, that mix of grace, femininity and steel, to their own work? Here’s hoping…

Tony Naylor

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