Synth-core, electro tech movement, futurism – call it what you will, the near-do-well acid brothers, Dan and Jon Kahuna’s debut album, ‘Machine Says Yes’ provides a stirring, startling likeness for magazines like The Face and Sleazenation. Imagine such things as a stomping, organic presence with real-time attitude and outrageous volume – and you pretty much have some kind of vision you can call Kahuna.
With vocal contributions from the likes of alt-country singer Eileen Rose and Gus Gus member Hafdis Huld as well as cameo’s from the Super Furry’s Gruff Rhys and one-time Verve bassist, Simon Jones it’s not that difficult to imagine an unpredictable, compelling ride. And to be fair, that’s what you get.
Beginning their relationship as childhood neighbours in Leeds, Dan and Jon Kahuna later went on to DJ and design the infamous Big Kahuna club just as the Chemical Brothers were doing the Social at Turnmills.
With a set and an approach rumoured to have inspired the near outrageous Norman Cook ‘Fatboy Slim’ metamorphosis, the boys went on to providing the big-beat Friday evening ’21st Century Bodyrockers’ at the Cynthia’s Robotic Bar in London’s SE1 and this is kind of where we meet them – poised upon the brink of the most blissful 21st Century comedown.
Now on the dance music industry’s self-confessed ‘label du jour’ City Rockers, along with Muzik Award Winner, Felix Da Housecat, FC, Pete Tong, Seb Fontaine, Rob Wakeman, Audiobullys, and Felix Da Housecat, FC Kahuna provide a twisted, cosmic soundtrack to a thousand and one nights of cyber madness. Bold, experimental, uncompromising and in parts – testing, ‘Machine Says Yes’ is Designers Republic meets King Kong meets Akira meets Barbarella – with a little of Dan Daring in between.
Recently preceded by the critically acclaimed singles ‘Glitterball’ and ‘Hayling’ these ‘essential’ new ‘tunes’ (as many would have us call them) practically sum up the thrust of the album: charged adrenaline rush giving way to burning downtempo fever – with more ups and downs than a night at a brothel – so to speak.
An acid house album by any other name, embracing everything from the early Warp pioneers to Gary Numan and Basement Jaxx, it’s a record that is able to court both classic majesty and discerning edge with sometimes implausible skill.
Avoiding the overwrought house and pop-sensibilities of the Chemical Brothers’ recent disappointment ‘Come With Us” Machine Says Yes pushes the boundaries of what could be considered ‘accessible’ but ‘edgy’ dance and comes up with something quite difficult to place. But it’s this sense of displacement that makes it successful – it’s unselfconscious and unpretentious.
Opening track, ‘Fear of Guitars’ with it’s oddly melodic and spherical ambience – a veritable mist of swirling gasses and cosmic fizzes – is a simultaneously pretty and machine-like affair, evoking, as much of the album does, a disorientating fractal trance. Something of a mantra for the A.I romanticist or fantasist, the song’s vocals are provided by Gruff Rhys of the Super Furrys – and what a surprising and convincing enough start it all is too.
Next up is chest thumping electro bass wake-up call, ‘Glitterball’ with its striding techno primitivism and acid-house liabilities. Not a million miles away from the funky-pop groove of New Order nor a million miles away from old familiar chestnuts like Orbital.
Husky, delectable title track, ‘Machine Says Yes’ (with Hafdis Huld – former Gus Gus – on vocals) deals the squidgey, static hand of acid-funk whilst ‘Nothing Is Wrong’ and ‘Bleep Freak’ could so easily be the sassy, lethargic godchildren of the Jaxx’s Rooty album. They’re sexy, they’re funky and they’re heeled up to the nines like a couple of Dutch transvestites.
Hafdis Huld’s beautiful, lulling if ingenuously timley stab at the lounge-core lizardry of Air and Zero 7 – is so tender and so chill, and so emphatically of the moment that it positively drips with liquid nitrogen. This is downtempo taking it easy: languid, surreal and so very, very fresh.
‘Machine Says Yes’ is a little like loving the alien: you never know what to expect – but for this you are never disappointed.
FC Kahuna’s ‘MACHINE SAYS YES’ is out now on CITY ROCKERS.
Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine© 2002