Arctic Reviews

Look - being an independent label is all about having an office in your flat, remortgaging it to launch the long lost second album by Crispy Ambulance, not washing, never being able to afford to eat and in general resigning yourself to decades of thankless struggle on every level. If there's one thing it absolutely isn't, it's glamorous. So who the hell are these French chaps then, treating the rules with a sense of continental disdain, ignoring the murky environment of the off-majors and doing the unforgivable; giving us music that's indie, but also sexy. Not for the first time on hearing a compilation from this label-cum-premier-rag-trade outfit, poor old Joe Britain is left feeling very much like we're a nation of musical shopkeepers.  

And the irony is that much of the content stolen from under our noses, acts like the Bangor-based trio Two Door Cinema Club, three men who are so pre-pubesecent in looks that the local multiplex is probably the only place they can get a drink without being forced to show ID. True, they may have overdosed slightly on Vampire Weekend's afrobeat nuances, but Something Good Can Work proves that boundless energy and infectious optimism are still the roots of great tunes, one for everyone who had Ladies of Cambridge on repeat for months like we did. Across La Manche things have been arguably in a rut ever since the Moog-overload of Sexy Boy, but despite their maddening inconsistency, gallic hipsters Phoenix have been long touted as heirs to - well, Air's - place in our collective hearts. Here, Lisztomania re-affirms those perceptions of minor greatness in spades, outfoxing those who claimed that any number of Les Rosbifs had now snatched their mantle as purveyors of freakish, sun-glassed alternative pop.

On the way to ubiquity, Elly "La Roux" Jackson reveals little more than what we already knew about her on In For The Kill, with the LIFELIKE mix sounding so ridiculously eighties it might as well be a Rubik's Cube driving an XR3i. For the few who still remember Vicious Pink Phenomena's breathy, hi-NRG synth porn of C-c-c-can't You See?, The Golden Filter's Favourite Things should bring back memories of an age before, as the cliche goes, the air got dirty and the sex got clean. 

Indie rule #873 clearly states that all compilations must rely on a few killers, with the rest being generic landfill crap that falls beneath the floor set by Little Man Tate, or even Milburn. Au contraire here. Maison sept bursts at the seams with crowd pleasing ear candy, folky dork James Yuill delivering his trademark lo-tech awkwardness on This Sweet Love, Chateau Marmont's Beagle bringing to mind the moment first heard Daft Punk's Homework, and MAYBB's Touring in NY sounding like a Speak And Spell that's been rewired by Chromeo.  The show-stealing though is all done by Delphic, the anthemic Counterpoint obviosuly mining Paris Angel's All On You, but with a degree of ecstatic authenticity. As a centrepiece, it underlines the point that indie music is very much dead. Long live then " le musique Independent".