spudshow : SpudShow 285

Thu, 26 June 2008

music supplied by IodaPromonet

Group - Dandi Wind

Track 1 - Balloon Factory
Track 2 - Apotemnophilia
Track 3 - Slumlord

Info
When UK music journalists loudly christened the “Neu-Rave” genre this past summer, with magazines like iD and NME putting Dandi Wind squarely at the forefront, we could hardly wait for the movement to surface, just like “Olde-Rave,” on North America’s cultural radar, in about a half-decade or so. The rumored scattershot resurgence of glowsticks in non-rave settings gave us slight encouragement for a quicker turnaround, but, ever since the recent death of society, this seemed no less tenuous and shallow than an ironic reclamation of Pogs. So, is Neu-Rave a movement with legs? Or just indie-rock with tacked-on “whooshy siren ravey noises” cynically appropriating yet another newly-minted nostalgic era? It doesn’t matter, because Dandi Wind is much more than a tripster buzz-genre could ever define, sincerely or not.

Much has been made of the Dandi Wind live experience, whose legend has been growing with every show. The sheer wall-climbing, feral physicality of Dandi’s stage performance, in lockstep with keyboardist/programmer Szam’s (and recently added live drummer Evan’s) relentless playing, can belie the fact that their show is startlingly tight for something seemingly on the verge of utter chaos. During recent touring with fellow infamous club-destroyers such as Les Georges Leningrad, Klaxons, Justice, Broken Social Scene and Erase Errata, the trio of Dandi Wind threatened to tear the roof off of every venue with impunity, often outshining their better-known compatriots, and all without a hint of irony. That blood is real blood, and possibly your blood. Authentic!

Dandi Wind’s debut full-length Concrete Igloo, originally self-released in a highly limited run to a quick sell-out, has now been reissued on Summer Lovers Unlimited in enhanced CD format, with stark, jaw-dropping design and ten music videos. As with the Dandi Wind live show, this album is a truly cohesive cross-media assault. The jarring, icy imagery of Dandi’s design is mirrored perfectly in Concrete Igloo’s sound - a fierce, claustrophobic collision of genre, meme, and modern-age mania. Songs like “Pluck It Out” and “Apotemnophilia” speak of perverse urges to escape the strictures of the human body (the latter song being the clinical term for the urge to self-amputate) yet are intensely rhythmic and danceable. Dandi’s vocals throughout are, by turns, animalistically gutteral and unnervingly slight, riding on Szam’s onrushing sheets of synth. On crowd favorites like “Balloon Factory,” absurdist vignettes are played out in the form of fractured playground chant and narrative. Songs like “Einsteinbrains” speak of human interaction but do so with a frenetic detachment from reality, in perfect keeping with our increasingly depersonalized times. The group playfully refers to itself as “post no-wave”, but it’s rather more fitting to categorize Dandi Wind as post-civilization. (Coming soon.)