Hands

Yesterday went down to Tunbridge Wells, to meet the DWM boys. I do a bit of work for them occasionally and was there to discuss Future Developments Which May Or May Not Prove Exciting. The office was as cluttered as I’d imagined; I saw the shrine where they keep every photo from every Doctor Who story ever (more of a filing cabinet than a shrine) and the photograph of Jeremy Bentham on the wall smiling down beneficently upon the geeky proceedings.

On the way back, listened to the Little Boots album, Hands, on my mp3. It’s okay. It starts out very strongly, with three singles – the Human League-esque New In Town, the Moroder-esque Stuck On Repeat and I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-a-Xenomania-song-for-Girls-Aloud Remedy. After that it rather fizzles out a bit until Phil Oakey turns up to lend his asymmetrical hair-stylings to Symmetry. Actually, fizzles out is probably a little unfair; it just doesn’t have the same energy and there are several songs that probably Reward Repeated Listens, because to begin with they sound Disconcertingly Interchangeable.

Can’t help comparing it to the La Roux album; Little Boots vocals are stronger, and there isn’t much between the arrangements, but La Roux sound, to me, much spikier, eclectic and weirder whereas Little Boots sounds occasionally like glam-era Goldfrapp or, and this might just be me, Erasure’s last album, Light At The End Of The World. Which is kind of damning with high praise; I have no objection to owning a CD that sounds a bit like stuff I already own, that’s how my music collection works. Certainly Mathematics sounds more like La Roux than Little Boots.

Of course, the real test is whether it’s good jogging music. I shall have to save Meddle for that particularly steep bit on the left-hand side of Greenwich Park.