In the days when the 1980s was some 30 years prior to the time it is now and when hairstyles the size and shape of a paddle of ducks were something to be
ridiculed rather than revered, the world was facing a crisis much greater than
the global economic one we are grappling with today. Some forty years after
the Suez Crisis threatened to destabilise the entire Middle East and some twenty
years after the Cuban Missile Crisis had literally blown up in Kennedy’s face,
the UK’s China Crisis promised to disturb the bedrock of British culture forever
with their inoffensive brand of lightly oriental pop and their nice if conservative
hair adventures. If the ‘persuasive dangers’ of ‘Black Man Ray’ didn’t have
you shooting smack in your eye for your birthday, then the dangerously subversive
subtext of ‘King in a Catholic Style’ would have you strapping 50lbs of explosives
to your chest faster than you could say Che Guevara. And now they’re back, albeit
with a different name, a couple of Australian guys replacing Eddie and Gary,
but still raising the bar on gentle, ‘otherwordly’ adult-oriented-pop.
Those of us in the Britain already know what to expect, ‘Walking On
A Dream’ having already peaked at Number 21 in the UK album chart and
the single grabbing a tidy 1.2 million views on YouTube, but this time it’s
the turn of the yanks to fall quietly in love with the duo’s lush, cinematic
arrangements and a spontaneity as innocent and impulsive as Luke Steele’s bizarre
falsetto. A relentless first half sees the Sleepy Jackson front-man and Pnau’s
Nick Littlemore, rifle through the archives of Fleetwood Mac, Twin Peak’s Angelo
Badalamenti, and controversial 80s legends like Berlin and Alphaville, whilst
the second half sees them pursue a random and psychedelic trajectory that peeks
with the bright, celestial fireworks of ‘The World’ – as trippy and sweet as
a sugar-lump dipped in Lysergic acid.
In Umberto Eco’s ‘Faith in Fakes’ the celebrated Italian author argues that
a near random juxtaposition of material can become an art form of its own, able
to make statements in its own terms. Copying from one source is called plagiarism,
copy from fifty and it’s called research. Use one cliché and it’s culpable.
Use a hundred and it’s called Gaudi. Where you aware that there are seven ‘fake’
statues of Michelangelo’s David in Las Vegas?
Parody, pastiche – call it what you will – it’s funny how all this stuff commands
a respect from the mainstream indie-press that the originals were cruelly (and
routinely) denied. The triumph of style over substance or a belated victory
for the middle-of-road?
Suggested downloads:
’Standing on A Shore/Walking On A Dream/Half Mast’ ~ Possibly the most instantly likeable introduction on any album ever. Cooing, epic pop as sci-fi as it is hi-fi.
‘The World’ ~ Wonky lucid-dreaming has Sparks meet the Fimbles. Silly but beautiful.
Empire of the Sun ~ ‘Walking on A Dream’ ~ review by Alan Sargeant ~ released 01.04.09