Klaxons
First, the formalities. The Klaxons (though it’s actually just ‘Klaxons’, like the Pixies were only ever really ‘Pixies’, but you get the idea…) number these people – Jamie Reynolds on bass and vocals, James Righton (aka The Cat) on keyboards, bass and vocals, Simon Taylor-Davis (aka Captain Strobe) on guitar and backing vocals, and most recently Steffan Halperin (aka Bellringer) who joined the band officially just a few days ago on drums and backing vocals.
Odd though it now seems, it was only a quarter of the way in to 2006 that any of us would have first owned anything by the Klaxons, when five hundred hand decorated copies of their debut single ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ were released in to the wild by Angular Records in April of that year. Come the end of the annum, they’d generated the kind of hype and subsequent following that was usually reserved for big festival headliners – and all this before even releasing a debut LP. For once however, those predicting at the beginning of 2006 who would be the ‘next big things’ were right, and the Klaxons, as evidenced by their number 2 position in the album charts, are now some of 2007’s big players.
Initially, there was some ground work to do. Next, through Merok records, the band followed up the limited run of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ with ‘Atlantis To Interzone’, infamously backed by Radio 1’s Jo Whiley who seemed incapable of calling the song anything but ‘Atlantis To Interscope’. Fool. Of course, its mix of frantic yelping, huge riffs and old rave samples got people very excited, the people at Polydor winning out on a bidding war and securing the band’s services, the first fruits of which were the single ‘Magick’, also the band’s first top thirty hit.
Their clever use of sampling, choice of cover versions (including rave classics ‘The Bouncer’ and ‘Not Over Yet’), generosity with glow sticks at gigs and tendencies to get people to actually dance for once lead to the Klaxons being reluctantly hailed as figureheads of the much maligned ‘new rave’ scene, a term coined by Angular Records founder Joe Daniel and championed by those fellows at the NME.
Yet it was clear to those who were interested on more than a superficial level that there was more going on here – some of the band’s finest moments, notably the intelligent pop crafting of ‘Golden Skans’ (a current top ten hit), contained little to no rave element at all. The band also showed signs of exploring sonic textures more and more, even being commissioned by the Tate Modern to compose a soundtrack to an artwork of their choice, and explored supernatural and space-age themes - ‘Atlantis To Interzone’ is a William Burroughs reference, ‘Magick’ a nod to Aleister Crowley, and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ pays homage to reclusive type Thomas Pynchon.
Their debut album, ‘Myths of the Near Future’, currently sits at number two in the album charts. Norah Jones, one place above them, is said to be ‘cacking her pants’ with fear.
KLAXONS DOT NET: A page that scrolls from left to right rather than from top to bottom and is so full of Technicolor gubbins and weird spellings that it’s almost impossible to read? Perfect!
KLAXONS MYSPACE : A page that lists their location as ‘New Cross, Atlantis, Interzone…’ and has the otherwise rather rare demo of their cover of ‘The Bouncer’ is worth a peek.
CREATE YOUR OWN ‘MYTHS…’ ARTWORK: Submit it to the band, then chuck it on your iPod. Personally we love the artwork as it is, so treat it with reverence, yeah?
MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE: ‘This is it then. new rave sinks or swims on the merits of this record...’
GOLDEN SKANS: Alex Lee Thomson’s appraisal of the band’s fine, current single.
ROCKFEEDBACK.TV: Soon to be repeated via Channel 4, you can investigate us here: we shot Klaxons in Iceland, don’t you know.
SCENE REPORT: MANCHESTER 10/06: Amid last year’s ‘In The City’ music conference, Manchester correspondent Gareth picked up a glow stick to see what all the fuss was about.