#1

Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner wouldn’t be the types who’d fret too much about style over substance. Indeed, in their louche electro universe style is the substance.

Bursting out of New York with a flurry of hyperbole that makes The Strokes look like they’ve been raised on a strict diet of humble pie, Fischerspooner are the art/music/fashion fusion who have been willingly placed at the vanguard of the so-called electro-clash scene. In a dance world desperate for a new sensation, re-hashing catchy electro-pop licks in a smooth noughties package mightn’t really constitute a new scene, but what the hell it will do anyway. #1 is all surface and no feeling, and a pretty cool comfy surface it is to.

‘Invisible’ and ‘The 15th’ are fine updates of Kraftwerk’s slick and sophisticated rush of melody. Lead single ‘Emerge’ trashes its way out of the electronic strait-jacket, giving (gulp) Andrew WK a run for his messiness in the bloodied nose category. The drone of “hyper-mediocrit-ee”, intoned with maximum inflection, could be construed as Fischerspooner’s ironic manifesto mantra. A universe where everything goes as long it “looks good” and “feels good.”

Fischerspooner’s debut contains three scorchers – the aforementioned ‘Emerge’, the towering Daft Punk meets Pink Floyd epic ‘Horizon’ and the oddly emotive ‘Natural Disaster’. A lot of their companion pieces sound empty if compelling, but for this theatrically pompous, outrageously camp duo, that is more than half the point.