Every so often in a special artist s career, a magical quantum leap in quality occurs in the space of releasing merely one album. Possibly the most celebrated case is how the Beatles graduated from churning out simple songs about girls to the mastery of Revolver. Despite how good or bad the pop landscape gets, an awesome surprise is always capable of coming out of nowhere to knock you for six such as Nirvana s Nevermind or Mercury Rev s Deserter s Songs. The Contino Sessions is such a record.
Two short years ago, Death in Vegas were lumped into that ridiculously smug scene labelled Big Beat. Their debut album, Dead Elvis, was above the ordinary but not yet extraordinary. They lacked the pop suss and floor filling killer punch that the likes of Fatboy Slim or The Chemical Brothers exemplified.
Shortly after the release of Dead Elvis, Death in Vegas lynchpin and acclaimed international DJ Richard Fearless became sick of what he dismisses as really horrible, Jive Bunny music . The joke wasn t funny anymore, and the big beat party was well and truly over. Now every one is queing up with a shopping-trolley full of superlatives to try to sum up the dark, luxurious textures of their second album. An album which, bar the sole hiccup of the Bobby Gillespie vocal driven Soul Auctioneer , is as close to perfection through astounding reinvention as Screamadelica or anything else that managed to light up this decade. So, where did it all
go right?
Quite simply we just put our heads down and went about the business of making an album which is not remotely dance-floor or DJ orientated, explains Fearless humbly. Having said that, even though we are out of that whole dance thing, we are getting Album of the Month reviews everywhere, even in Jockey Slut, which being a DJ is magazine which I have an enormous amount of respect for. I find that so surprising since the Leftfield album came out at the same time.
Our main influences are all the acts that appear on the album! smiles Tim Holmes. It was honestly only coincidence. The way in which the sessions turned out reflects that dynamic which The Stooges, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream mean to us as music. And singers from all these groups feature on the album!
The only one that didn t make it was Jason Pierce (Spiritualized), continues Richard. I met Jason at the Trinity Ball last year and he kept on saying that we should work together. That resulted in the Come Together remix I did for them. We intended that the track which Jim Reid (Jesus and Mary Chain) ended up doing would feature Jason. It just never got around to
happening.
Absolutely no disrespect to Jason, but I think Jim s voice ended up suiting that piece of music really, really well, adds Holmes.
They also reveal that they are working with one of the most influential yet reclusive musical geniuses of our times, My Bloody Valentine s Kevin Shields.
He is doing an album, (the long awaited follow up to Loveless which makes The Stone Roses look as prolific as The Fall) and we worked on a track called Message Personnel with him. He has asked me to design the sleeve. The thing about Kevin is that he is an extremely, extremely difficult person to get hold of. He keeps very odd hours and lives in this very strange house.
Things like that don t really matter though, comments Tim. As we proved with this record, like-minded people will be drawn to each other, whatever it takes.
Indeed, beautiful chancers that they were, Tim and Richard sent the great Iggy Pop a tape of one of their compositions. They didn t expect that one of their all time heroes would bother listening to it, yet alone get in touch wanting to work with them.
In the studio he was totally amazing. He kept pinching himself really hard to psyche himself up for the vocals, comments Tim. We went to see his gig in London the other day and it was exactly the same in terms of his sheer raw energy. The band were fucking incredible, banging out all these Stooges numbers which you have listened to completely to death, but they still give you goose-bumps.
So now that Death in Vegas are sharing studios with living legends, picking up strong Album of the Year hints in every magazine you open, and beginning to stun audiences on their largest tour to date (which will feature a London date with all guest vocalists and collaborators performing), has life in this newly found fast-lane undergone a dramatic change since the Dead Elvis days?
The most noticeable change is a little sickening, says Richard. People who didn t want to know you, return your calls and send you bottles of champagne with congratulations from everybody at blah, blah, blah just because you have made the Top 40 and are in the NME. I m still far more interested in what my mates think.
They are bound to be impressed. n
The Contino Sessions is currently available on Concrete.