TV On The Radio - Dear Science

John Taylor is often quoted as saying that the initial vision for Duran Duran was to cross the club friendly disco funk of Chic with the punk rock guitars and attitude of The Sex Pistols. As they developed their sound grew away from this pretty quickly and they became one of the iconic bands of the early 80s, although still with an eye as much on the dancefloor as an ear to the charts and arenas.

Although, for my money they made some of the best music of the early 80s (and turned in great albums in 1993 and 2007) the idea of what they could have been is still intoxicating. And so we turn to today’s release of TV On The Radio’s third album Dear Science, and we must wonder what JT, Nick Rhodes et al would make of it.

As slick and funky as anything dreamed up by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards (check out ‘Red Dress’ and ‘Crying’) it still has the metallic dream pop edge of their debut and 2006’s Return To Cookie Mountain and, as Pitchfork have already pointed out, lyrics mired in “self-doubt, Bush-hate, and future-fear”. A very noughties take on the original DD proposition.

It may lack a moment as unstoppable as ...Cookie Mountain’s ‘Wolf Like Me’ but as a whole it’s a much more satisfying proposition with several killer tracks (opener 'Halfway Home' and 'Dancing Choose' are current faves). Now if we could only get David Sitek to produce the next Duran Duran album...

The Dodos @ ULU

Went to see San Francisco's The Dodos last night at ULU. It was my first gig for a few weeks and I was really glad I'd made the effort. I'm still kicking myself for not making it along to Bon Iver last week.

This was my second time with the duo (actually a trio live) having caught them back in April when they played an instore at Amoeba Records in LA. Frontman Meric Long's playing style flits between finger picking and aggressive strumming and twisted chords (often all in the same song) and takes in some non-standard tunings while Logan Kroeber's locked in drumming holds the whole set together (I think he only stopped drumming once or twice in the whole set, linking each song together into an hour long suite). Their respective backgrounds in African ewe drumming and prog-metal clearly influences their approach, the whole becoming a kind of minimal-psychedelic take on folk with acoustic guitar, drums and percussion.

Check out their second album Visiter, one of this year's best.