Review: Django Django, Glasgow Stereo

IT ISN’T too early to bombard Django Django with superlatives. To compare them with fellow Scottish and semi-Scots art school successes such as Orange Juice, the Beta Band or Franz Ferdinand is to define their aesthetic more than their sound.

The London-formed, 50 per cent Edinburgh College of Art educated quartet sound like no-one but themselves, or rather a fusion of influences so unlikely as to be wholly original.

From the opening Hail Bop, a tribal beat suffused with the whistles and wordless harmonies of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti western score, their sound was led from the back, and the powering, rhythmic drumming of Dave (brother of the Betas’ John) Maclean. Five minutes into the set, a rave horn and a fat electro breakdown signalled the arrival of Storm, and the perfect synthesis of arch guitar pop and inventive club music which this band make their own.

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Over less than an hour they threw together slowed-down disco baselines, ringing cowbell, Tommy Grace’s crunching house beats and delicately rattled tambourine and, on Love’s Dart, a juxtaposition of clip-clopping coconut shells and a Kraftwerk rhythm. The sold-out crowd’s hands rose into the air for Default, their signature tune, but by no means the best this thrilling new band had to offer.

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