(Nutznboltz Records)

Kid Kay Ferris isn’t actually a ‘real’ person per se, but rather the gestalt studio entity alter-ego comprised of Brisbane-based Joel Joslin and Danny Muller. ‘Colour Me Badd’ is their debut album on Brisbane-based independent label Nutznboltz Records, and follows hot on the heels of their appearance on last year’s 4ZZZ ‘Gizzzmo’ compilation.

From the outset, there’s a tonne of images being thrown out here by Joslin and Muller that indicate that ‘Colour Me Badd’ might trade heavily on nostalgia for the early 1990s, not least the title, both stealing from and punning the 90s hip-house / RnB outfit of the same name. Then, there’s the beautifully stylised sleeve art by Ion that cloaks this package, which features one of the fellas leaping forward, Ray-bans on face, guitar-style Yamaha keyboard in hand, while the other leaps into the air in his boxfresh Nike Airs.

For a brief moment, a chill ran through this reporter as I remembered a long year past of acts and records riffing solidly on that late 80s / 90s vibe, and wondered whether I was about to be confronted with the Queensland equivalent of Zoot Woman. After playing this CD more or less solidly for the past week, I can safely say that I was both surprised, intrigued and entertained. Like all good pop the buzz hasn’t gone away and best of all it’s not er, badd, for you.

Opening with a suitably cosmic intro that sounds like it could have been constructed with the same equipment used on BBC TV’s ‘Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy’, ‘Space Travel’ slams down into pounding kick-drum breakbeats and spiraling synths, before vocoders take the track to an epic electro-funk conclusion. Although there are a few rave flashback buttons being pushed with the inclusion of hardcore-style stabs and builds, it’s the attention to production detail that stuns here. While many of the tracks included on ‘Colour Me Badd’ knowingly reference stylistic details taken from the early 90s dance scene, the production is so sophisticated that it sidesteps the usual trap of ‘oh well, there’s four of us, let’s get haircuts, early series Korgs and some of those hexagonal Syn-drums that burst into flame when you hit them too much.’

‘Here To Stay (The Kid Kay Is)’ wanders into more tongue-in-cheek territory, with deliberately cheesy synths laid over pumping house beats, before the breakdown takes it into pounding hardcore territory, digitally-processed vocal fragments timestretching and vocoding back and forth. ‘Phil Collins Running’ (previously included on the fairly hard to obtain 4ZZZ ‘Gizzzmo 2’ compilation) by contrast is much colder and darker, with ‘Stakker Humanoid’-style video game blasts shooting across LFO-esque synths and tough electro breakbeats that build up into one of this album’s most fierce and bleepy moments.

Title track ‘Colour Me Badd’ takes its cue from mid-90s European rave, and builds up a vast bed of trancey synths and pounding beats under Madaline Page’s swooning vocals, and ‘You Make Me Feel Electric’ highlights a more contemplative side, plinking blurred synths slowly giving way to house beats overlaid with Danny Muller’s New Romantic-esque vocals.

‘Robot MC’ takes slowed down robot burbles and drops them through a dense mix of house beats, bleeps and ravey stabs, while ‘The Unplanned City’ takes things down into funky electro, sinister synths and snatches of Monique Eichperger’s icy vocals adding a menacing edge. ‘Trouble Indeed’ ratchets the intensity dial up a few notches, with samples intoning ‘The Republic will fall / this is trouble indeed’ over a blazing hard house backdrop that blasts along at Shinkansen speed, before closer ‘When Will You Float Away’ brings the curtain down, the closest thing to a synthetic ballad on this album.

But it’s is a false ending – just as the final listed track on this CD slowly dies away, it’s replaced by a slow phased loop that builds up into a dense undulating ‘secret’ ambient track that shifts through a variety of different motifs over the rest of the disc’s 25 minutes. It’s certainly an interesting and worthwhile bonus inclusion that highlights a taste for ambience that isn’t really reflected on the album’s listed tracks, and at almost the same length as the listed portion, forms the intriguing other ‘dark half’ of Colour Me Badd.

Throughout all of its tracks, ‘Colour Me Badd’ manages to successfully negotiate the thin tightrope between cheesy nostalgia and genuine appreciation of retro 90s aesthetic – although there are plenty of touches of hypercolour in there, the veneer is backed up by good tunes built around imaginative and detailed contemporary production. Definitely worth a look if colourful and slightly ironic electro-pop with more than a few clever twists is your bag…

Recommended for fans of: Happyland, Fischerspooner, Les Rhythmes Digitales