“We’re not really interested in the whole ’80s thing,” confesses Michael Pope, programmer-in-chief of sci-fi-loving, glo-stick-bashing, synth-wielding electro-pop troupe Le Galaxie. If something doesn’t add up there, pour yourself a Babycham, slice into a Viennetta and allow the frontman to explain.
“I know it looks like we’re obsessed with the ’80s. Actually, we love what they thought would be the future. Some people don’t know the difference. They see the chrome and neon and face paint and think that I love the ’80s. No, I don’t! I lived in the ‘80s and it was fucking shite! I love their vision of the future, which I honestly think is beautiful.”

The art of channelling the future through the daydreams of the past is known as retro-futurism – it may sound complicated, but it’s nothing an episode of The Jetsons won’t clear up.
“It’s almost been like doing research for a movie,” bassist David McGloughlin says, “because you’re thinking about what you’re doing so much that you start to notice it all around you. You’ll just cherry-pick little thoughts, lyrics, visual ideas... it does sort of permeate everything that you do.”
“In a way, it’s horribly unhealthy!” Pope laughs.
I’m guessing that flying cars and robot servants wouldn’t have been on the agenda had I interviewed 66e, the slow-burning electro-rock outfit that came before Le Galaxie’s current incarnation.
"It was a bit earnest, that stuff,” Pope recalls. “Not to say that we don’t take what we’re doing now very seriously. It was kind of overbearing.”
66e came to a natural end when vocalist Ed Cullen moved on from the band, leaving Pope, McGloughlin, guitarist Anthony Hyland and drummer Alistair Higgins to veer into a totally new sound.
“We did the X Factor thing of recording auditions of all these people who came along to sing for us,” Pope says, “but suddenly we realised, ‘Fuck, we don’t want to be that band any more.'”
McGloughlin explains, “There was one particular late night gig at the Button Factory when it was literally like, ‘Right! This is where we’re going.’”
“There were DJs on,” Pope recalls, “and we thought, ‘We can’t go on after these guys, this sucks! We’re not this kind of band!’ It was one o’clock in the morning and we did our thing and the crowd were fantastic. It was like, ‘OK you can do live dance music and not just be behind laptops’!
"We’ve kind of found ourselves in a middle ground,” he adds. “We’re not serious electronica. When we started off we might have been math rock, but we all failed maths! I don’t think there’s anyone in Ireland really like us.”
Through appearances at Electric Picnic, Castlepalooza and HWCH, Le Galaxie have proved themselves to be one of the most thrilling live acts in the country, and probably the most fun. Pope says it’s taken them a long time to get the balance right.
“We made an EP two years ago that was so bad. It was so fucking shit that it really bummed us out. We still talk about what an awful experience it was! This time we said, ‘We’ll do a record and however long it takes, it takes’.”
Their debut album Laserdisc Nights II is everything the title suggests – floor-filling, fist-thumping, starry-eyed electro-pop, only without the use of a big-ass production suite.
“The live show is very important to us,” Pope says, “and it took a really long time to make it sound like a live record. It had to, otherwise people would just think we’re DJs or laptoppies... four screens and baseball caps! Even if it sounds like fuzzy, filthy fucked-up noise, it still had to sound like a live band. We kind of got our wish with the fuzzy, filthy fucked-up noise! Then there are samples that you clear and samples that you don’t clear..."
“Hey!” McGloughlin scolds.
“We have the most illegal album in history,” Pope laughs, “Let’s put it that way!”
This exchange is followed by a full run-through of all the illegal activity that went into the creation of Laserdisc Nights II. If I didn’t feel compelled to keep the fuzzy, filthy, fucked-up Le Galaxie sound alive for as long as possible, I could easily print a scathing exposé. One of the trippiest moments on the album is ‘The Police Department’, which mashes a conversation between a robot and his creator with spiralling, throbbing space bleeps. The robot, named Jules, is heard begging his “father” not to ship him off to the customer who ordered him.
“It still makes me sad!” Pope pines. Still, for all its surreal moments, Laserdisc Nights II is a thoroughly glossy affair, although this is a suggestion that Pope understandably finds hilarious.
“From listening to it, obviously you’d think it was recorded in LA, Miami or the Moon,” he jokes, “when in actual fact it was Cavan, Crumlin and what can only be described as a porn dungeon on Capel Street! Recording was really stressful. Getting across that we’re a live band was paramount.”
No matter how many copies of Laserdisc Nights II they manage to shift, Le Galaxie want to be remembered as an all-flashing, all-neon live force.
“People will say, ‘The visual thing’s interesting, the music’s interesting, maybe I’ll go see them live.’” Pope concludes. “That’s when they have to fall in love.”