News

Cicada

• 17th Sep 2009

“Like a mix between Blondie, New Order, and Daft Punk” The London Paper

The Cicada ‘life cycle’ began back in 2006 with a suitably slow-burn success story, refined from a myriad of acclaimed remixes. Successfully transforming artists such as Depeche Mode, New Order, Editors and The Enemy for the dance floor, with the mantra of retaining their integrity but providing extra punch, Cicada’s craft was originally heard via their gleaming re-workings.

From there they progressed to producing their own material and in 2006, Cicada picked up rave plaudits for their debut album, “Cicada”. Everywhere from Music Week, Mixmag, DJ Magazine, Record Collector and beyond, gave them glowing praise, highlighting the gap in the scene for an electro-pop band with the song-writing to match their hooks. The album sold in droves topping online polls without significant marketing from the group’s label. It was a genuine word-of-mouth success and sold over 30,000 copies worldwide.

A slew of hot singles such as ‘Electric Blue’, ‘All About You’, and ‘Cut Right Through’ have given Cicada a global fan-base. Their hit single ‘The Things You Say’ was remixed by Aussie favourite Dirty South, and went on to be a huge hit for Cicada, ending up as Beatport’s 2nd best selling single of the year. This propelled them back behind the decks once more, and coupled with a global tour of live dates and DJ gigs in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Holland, Russia, Asia and many more, the buzz that first emanated from the UK grew and became global…

This year alone Cicada has played many impressive live performances, both in the UK and abroad. They have shared stages with acts as diverse as The Beastie Boys, Digitalism, Snoop Dogg, Groove Armada and David Guetta. They’ve played at Glastonbury, V, The Big Chill and the iTunes Festivals this year alone – making them not only one of the must-see live acts of the electronic world, but an act that stands up to even the most full on dance music coming out of the speakers of the worlds best clubs.

Always with an eye firmly glued to the prize yet bypassing regurgitated formulas, Cicada, comprising of Aaron Gilbert and Alex Payne have proved they’re as comfortable behind the turntables rocking an underground club crowd, as they are spearheading an electrified assault on electro-indie dance in the studio, or playing live on a festival stage in front of
20,000 people.

Fast forward to the present day and Cicada are now more live sounding in many ways, but still with both feet firmly planted in the corner marked ‘electronic’. Arguably they sound like little else out right now. Fusing their retro rock and pop sensibilities with beats honed over years of dance floor experience they successfully walk that line which over the years has been littered with musical corpses.
On their latest 2009 studio album, “Roulette”, Cicada bring together the musical influences that they grew up with via early New York New Wave and the stylistic synthesis of French Electronica. It's an album that has been largely influenced by two years of playing live-from festivals to small clubs, and which charts Cicada's coming of age from studio based producers to fully fledged band members.

‘Roulette’ springs all manner of surprises on the listener. ‘Metropolis’ is a gem that comes on like Tiga’s finest electroclash given a sparkling 2009 update, and Bjorn Synneby of Swedish bands Pacific! and The Whyte Seeds, sings on the contagious Empire Of The Sun-esque ‘Talking’. Tom Smith of Editors sings on ‘Executive’, one of the album’s most memorable moments, akin to the Talking Heads majestically produced by William Orbit, but perhaps the centrepiece, however, is ‘One Beat Away’, a euphoric slice of indie dance, a song so immediate it has become a call and response ritual at Cicada gigs. It’s a dancefloor detonator that ebulliently sums up Cicada’s intention to create music with one foot on the dancefloors of Ibiza and one down in the mud at the front at a festival. Cicada show that they are territories that can majestically collide to remarkable effect. “Roulette” is underpinned with big and intelligent beats, a palpable undercurrent of rock music, and the clarity of hugely melodic vocals.

Current single Psycho thrills is fast becoming an anthem for summer 2009 and their biggest release since ‘The Things You Say’, and will lead into the single release of ‘One Beat Away’.

Cicada’s fervent dislike of musical boundaries has lead to an album, which successfully cuts out the need for pigeon holing. It’s a Pandora’s box of well-crafted songs with an electronic edge forged by many years working dancefloors and beyond.

Cicada play London's 93 Feet East on Thursday 1st October.
Tickets available here: link

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