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(Clan Analogue/Creative Vibes)
New releases from the Clan Analogue collective always seem to drop in pairs – witness the simultaneous release of Dark Network’s ‘Late Set’ alongside the ‘Defocus’ compilation a good year and a half ago, and the year preceding that, Prettyboy Crossover’s ‘Any Number Can Play’ alongside the ‘Habitats’ collection. This debut artist album from Sydney-based duo Bleepin’ J. Squawkins is no exception, emerging simultaneously this month with Clan Analogue’s excellent ‘Doppler Shift’ electro compilation.
Ed Leckie and Julian Higginson (aka Bleepin J. Squawkins) first met while attending university together, and from these early beginnings, began producing and recording music together, which they eventually entered into B(if)tek’s inaugural 2001 W.I.N.K. Awards. Surprising no-one more than themselves, they ended up winning the ‘best unsigned act’ category, and spurred on by this huge encouragement, spent the last one and a half years playing live at any available opportunity, as well as releasing a track on Clan’s ‘Cognition 4 – Solid Gold’ compilation. ‘Floppydisco’ emerges as the fruits of this fevered creative period, and the retro 5 ¼ inch floppy disk cover gives an immediate intimation as to its contents – in fact there’s an interesting story doing the rounds that Bleepin’ J. Squawkins originally wanted to release the album on 5 ¼” vinyl until Clan vetoed the idea (think about that hard for a moment and you’ll realise it’s all just part of the duo’s less than deadly serious approach).
Opening with ‘RSVP’, which places a vocoded French vocal over an undulating cold electro backdrop of sheeny synths, handclaps and crisp beats that calls to mind Metro Area or Black Strobe, ‘Floppydisco’ definitely starts off in cold clinical Euro territory, a trajectory reaffirmed by ‘Minerva Moog Part 1’, which evokes associations with Miss Kittin & The Hacker, guest vocalist Suzi Catchpole’s detached spoken vocal detailing the growing paranoia of an overindulged starlet over tense bleeping synths, a sinister electro bassline and swelling dark hardcore-influenced techno riffs. ‘Radio International’ meanwhile fuses a synth riff straight out of Fischerspooner’s #1 with a heavily processed robotic vocal to create a bleeping slice of electrofunk that sings about the joys of ‘tuning into DIY’, while ‘Alice Doesn’t Know’ places tense dark downtempo electro rhythms beneath an unsettling timestretched female sample repeatedly intoning ‘Alice.’ ‘Paris Bag’ ventures back into cold Euroclash-tinged house, with retro syd-drum cascades riding alongside the blipping analogue synth squeals and punching beats, a cut-up sampled French female vocal fitting back and forth, leading into ‘We Are Eclectric’, which offers a nice slice of bluesy synthetic soul with beatbox rhythms underpinning a bouncily funky bassline that’s topped with Higginson’s stretched out vocoded vowels and a repetitive blipping sound that’s straight out of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love.’ ‘Out Of Control’ comes with a distinctly darker edge, doppler-effect Autobahn synth tones giving way to a relentless hardcore-infused array of sinister synth riffs beneath cold gliding electro rhythms, while ‘Dancing On The Moon’ ventures even further into ravey electro-house tempos in one of the most furious moments on ‘Floppydisco’, thick analogue synth riffs cutting through punching kickdrums, and a sinister cut-up sample uttering “perform successfully” over the relentless beats.
‘Over And Out’ features the most naked and non-electronically treated of all of Higginson’s vocals on this album, and takes a New-Romantic tinged side-trip into Human League-esque synth pads and flat syn-drum beats, its lyrics describing the slide of a relationship into numbed ennui, before ‘Rock And Wobble’ takes things to a close, bringing back the crashing synthesised drum cascades, and injecting a fluid electrofunk groove beneath sampled B-movie samples that twists and turns to a suitably synth-laden conclusion.’Floppydisco’ is a consistently excellent debut album from Bleepin’ J. Squawkins that manages to adeptly traverse that slippy precipice that’s often the undoing of other similar acts that primarily draw upon a palette of 1980s-informed electro and synth-pop.
While many similar exercises of this type often end in hollow pastiche or at worst, outright cheese, ‘Floppydisco’ will have you playing spot the influence, while also marvelling at the sheer thought and attention to detail that’s gone into each of the tracks included here. Infectious and accessible, ‘Floppydisco’ sees Bleepin. J. Squawkins traversing similar terrain to what Brisbane duo Kid Kay Ferris explored on their recent fusion of rave, electro and house ‘Colour Me Badd’, and offers a fresh change from the established Clan Analogue sound in that it introduces prominent vocal elements – a trend also noticeable on this month’s ‘Doppler Shift’ compilation. This well-crafted dose of Euro-tinged electroclash straight outta Sydney easily stands up against most of what the Continent has to offer, and is one floppy disc(o) you should boot up soon. Recommended for fans of Felix Da Housecat, The Hacker, Kid Kay Ferris
Check out: www.bleepin.com and www.clananalogue.org
