”Everyone knows that a dog dressed in clothes is still a dog,” intones Swedish vocalist Ulrika Bjorsne on The Shortwave Set’s new single, No Social. True enough – but is an oddball indie act still an oddball indie act if they’ve been produced by super-in-demand Gnarls Barkley/Gorillaz collaborator Danger Mouse?
Certainly, much has changed for the South London-based band. In 2006 they were directionless and without a record deal, having been dropped by Independiente when debut album The Debt Collection generated laudatory reviews but few sales. Happily, one of the people who did like it was Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, who, delighted to have stumbled across a band who evidently shared his passion for esoteric psychedelia, invited them to Los Angeles to record a follow-up album - record deal be damned.
Once there, the good fortune multiplied. Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks signed up to score the strings. The Velvet Underground’s John Cale added some instrumental parts. The Stokes' Fabrizio Moretti and Nick Velensi dropped by the studio (though didn’t end up playing anything). Suddenly, this self-styled “Victorian funk” act found themselves sunning themselves at LA pool parties alongside actors and Playboy bunnies. It was, acknowledges Bjorsne, “all very “un-Shortwave Set.”
Still, the culture shock must have served them well, since new album Replica Sun Machine zings with fresh ideas, as evidenced by lead single No Social, a weirdly absorbing zombie-lurch that marries absurdist lyrics to a creaky Hammond sound last heard on an episode of The Addams Family. It’s a patched-up, thrift-store kind of affair, as though assembled from a jumble-sale, and about as far from the helium-voiced turbo-soul of Gnarls Barkley as it’s possible to get.
No Social is released on 7-inch vinyl and download on 21 April, followed by Replica Sun Machine on 5 May.
3:12 PM | 09/04/2008
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