- You are tuned to Xfm London
- switch to Xfm Manchester
Check Out Pet, Hot Chip & Gisli
In his continuing monthly mission, John Kennedy brings another new music showcase to the Camden Barfly. This month sees Icelandic style-magpie Gisli rubbing shoulders with the disarmingly eccentric home counties fuck machine Hot Chip and 'Miami Vice'-style Eurorockers Pet.
Hit the links to access the full set list
Gisli 'X-Posure Live' [Dial-Up] [Broadband]
Born in Reykjavic and currently residing in Norway, Gisli's songs have a pop and polish to them that belies the bleak, bleak surroundings they were composed in. Being named after the Icelandic word for hostage and spending five years tubthumping for proto-punk Norweigians Pornshot obviously equipped him with a healthy sense of humour.
Opening up by cheerily announcing his intention to 'Put the c**t back in country music' he proceeds to do nothing of the sort, instead blending electro, rap and europunk with all the effortless grace of Tom Cruise mixing mojitos in 'Cocktail'.
Like an Icelandic McClusky, Gisli's complete mish-mash of styles is delivered with an easygoing passion. Like a prune and engine-oil sandwich it should be an unpalatable mess but, as the well worn cliche goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and from the petulant protest rock of 'I Refuse' to 'Go Get 'Em Tiger's staccato raps, Gisli's vast swathe of influences serves him well.
Hot Chip 'X-Posure Live'
[Dial-Up]
[Broadband]
Apparently Hot Chip like to think of themselves as a modern day pop group. They're anything but. They're so, so much more.They are nothing less than the finest and, possibly, the only Home Counties equivalent of a South Central hip-hop crew, Hot Chip are having it large like only five flat-capped, bespectacled eccentrics can.
"I'm sick of motherfuckers trying to tell me that they're down with Prince!" squawks Taylor determinedly on 'Down With Prince', his own personal rant aimed at any Johnnys coming late to the diminutive purple funkster's party. Subsequent topical touchstones include Flake adverts of the '80s ('Sexual Chocolate') ready meals as a surprisingly moving metaphor for love lost ('Crap Kraft Dinner') and mockney celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver ('Ass Attack').
With a look straight outta Surrey, an attitude fresh from The Bronx, stage moves lifted from Morris Minor and The Majors and a book of subject matter running the gamut from Barry White to South Park, Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Owen Clarke, Felix Martin and Al Do-It follow in a fine X-Posure tradition of sounding like nothing you've ever heard before.
Pet 'X-Posure Live'
[Dial-Up]
[Broadband]
Berlin based songwriter Andre Abshagen is, unusually for a German, precisely aware of what he's doing, how he's doing it and what he's doing it with. 'I've combined modern electronic methods and sounds with elements of the music I remember from my childhood in the '70s and '80s' he explains.
Opener 'Monza' bears this out - it kicks off like the Knight Rider theme tune and quickly proves as sleek and smooth as Michael Knight's famous black Trans Am. 'Hovercraft' continues the TV Theme, er, theme - it's Electro Euro Pop but - staggeringly - Pet actually make it sound good. By the time we reach Pet's breakthrough single 'No Yes No' Andre's gone from the kind of teutonic stoicism that Kraftwerk would be proud of to a white-suited, guitar shredding dervish that wouldn't look out of a place at a reunion of the bastard sons of Steve Vai and John Johnson. The last song's called 'Superpet'. Sure thing.
Login to xfm+
latest videos
-
White Lies - 'To Lose My Life'
-
Kaiser Chiefs - 'Good Days Bad Days'
-
Oasis 'I'm Outta Time'
-
Xfm Meets New Order Part 1
How did New Order rise from the ashes of Joy Division? Peter Hook tells all.
schedule
-
now: 1:00PM - 4:00PM
The best new music and classic tunes including the X-list at 1. Email Jo.Good@xfm.co.uk or text 83xfm (standard network).
-
next: 4:00PM - 7:00PM
Drive time with Dave Berry, call Dave on 0871 222 1049 or txt 83xfm (std network).