XOYO, London
The word of mouth about Django Django is growing deafening. As the London-via-Edinburgh quartet head towards the end of their first UK tour, the venue is so grotesquely rammed that crowd members appear to be taking turns to inhale and exhale. Yet they maintain enough air in their lungs to greet songs from the band’s just-released, eponymous debut album with roars of approval.
It’s easy to understand the fuss. Django Django are clearly very special. The fresh-faced, nerdy-looking foursome shuffle on stage in a uniform of matching T-shirts that seem to bear images of swarms of migrating goldfish. They could be a support band for Pink Floyd at the UFO Club in 1967, or Kraftwerk on a dress-down day.
Yet when they fire into their mesmerising music, it is evident there is nothing gimmicky about these tyros. Their metier is a thrilling, ultra-modern strain of psychedelia that ranges across musical genres without sacrificing its redoubtable primal intensity. They may not do anything new, but they do numerous old things simultaneously, and brilliantly.
Their leader, producer and drummer, David Maclean, is the brother of a former Beta Band member, and they share that much-missed group’s maverick eclecticism while eschewing their reductive sense of whimsy. Tonight’s opening track, Hail Bop, unfolds around a majestic Rolling Stones-like riff and somehow manages to be both expansive and honed to a throbbing pulse.
In front of monochrome projections of querulous faces, bare swinging light bulbs and Venetian blinds, Storm is a slice of Super Furry Animals-style heavy-duty stoner rock. The vast and precocious Waveforms suggests Spiritualized suffused with sweet harmonies: these are songs with hidden depths, to dive into and lose yourself in.
Singer and guitarist Vincent Neff cuts an engaging and animated figure, adding a louche charm to the edgy electronica and tribal Bow Wow Wow rhythms of Skies Over Cairo. He clops two coconut-halves together to fashion the giddy-up rhythms of Love’s Dart, yet the song’s sun-bleached harmonies are as classicist and glorious as the Byrds or the Beach Boys.
The repeating power chords of Default descend into an impish jangle just because they can, then Life’s a Beach unfurls around a filthy Dick Dale surf riff. “It feels like we’ve only been up here for five minutes,” offers bassist Jimmy Dixon as Django Django exit, after an extraordinary hour-long set, to rapturous audience acclaim. It’s a noise they will get very used to.
Rating: 5/5
(Via Culture | guardian.co.uk)
