Album Review

Django Django – Django Django

• 29th Jan 2012

I’m identifying right now with Jack Black’s Barry in ‘High Fidelity’, listening to the track recorded by those little skater brats, holding his head in frustrated agony and saying “ungh, they’re really f*kn good”.

I didn’t want to like Django Django. They called Django Django for heaven’s sake. They’re another band that met at art school, and art students sometimes make me grumpy. They also make a point of the fact they live in London’s hipster central Dalston, which is a tad annoying. But, ungh, they’re really f*kn good.

Their self-recorded, self-titled debut album is pleasingly difficult to describe – eclectic to say the least, pulled together with a consistency that gives them a sound all their own. The legacy of influences in their music defies listing, but the harmonies in the vocals owe much to the likes of the Beach Boys, or Crosby, Stills and Nash; references to jazz exist more than just in name only; occasionally 1950s rock ‘n’ roll beats get the feet tapping; and Ennio Morricone’s film scores will no doubt start twanging and whistling in your head. Added to this strangely coherent mix are the sounds of spaceships landing, primal drums thumping, hand claps, cricket and bird-like chirps, siren wails, fuzzy electronics and Egyptian caravans. Occasionally silly, yes, but more often clever, always well crafted and genuinely enjoyable.

Dare I say this album feels post-modern, or would the art students shoot me down? Whatever, I like the conscious references to past styles and the way they’re innovatively re-presented. It reminds me a little of Belle & Sebastian’s ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’, if B&S wore cowboy hats and ponchos, hailed from Roswell and rode a Horse with No Name. Well worth many, many listens, this one – for me, it’s a nice reward for prejudices overcome.