The Liquid Room
4 stars
London quintet New Young Pony Club are so ineffably cool just now that, unless you’re in possession of joint lifetime subscriptions to ID and Dazed And Confused magazines, its impossible to be in the same room as them without feeling even more unfashionable than you are. Then again, as in-yer-face front-woman Tahita Bulmer sets out the band’s dance-floor manifesto early on in this high-octane romp through NYPC’s forthcoming debut album, Fantastic Playroom, “Now is not the time to be laid-back.”
Having already left the nonsense of ‘New Rave’ behind following the recent NME package tour, NYPC succeed in distilling a knowing pot pourri of 1981-inspired post-punk disco into something fleetingly vital where more serious minded souls have sounded naff. Live, already libidinous singles Ice Cream and The Bomb become 12” extended work-outs pumped out by a guitarist with a porn star moustache, a bassist called Igor with a working knowledge of A Certain Ratio riffs, a beanpole keyboardist aping two-fingered New Order House-lite while looking like she might actually own a pony, and a harmonising female drummer.
Bulmer herself is a strutting vision of asymmetrically frizzed hair, electric blue tights and, for one so hyper-active over a perfectly honed 40 minutes, a skirt so short as to be gynaecologically challenging. Such arresting charisma only heightens the NY, if not the PC effect on their best song, Grey, of Remain In Light era Talking Heads fused with a saucier B-52s.
This time next year New Young Pony Club will have either burst from over-excitement or else be emblazoned on the cover of every magazine in town. At least ID and Dazed And Confused can say they got their first.
The Herald, June 5th 2007
ends
4 stars
London quintet New Young Pony Club are so ineffably cool just now that, unless you’re in possession of joint lifetime subscriptions to ID and Dazed And Confused magazines, its impossible to be in the same room as them without feeling even more unfashionable than you are. Then again, as in-yer-face front-woman Tahita Bulmer sets out the band’s dance-floor manifesto early on in this high-octane romp through NYPC’s forthcoming debut album, Fantastic Playroom, “Now is not the time to be laid-back.”
Having already left the nonsense of ‘New Rave’ behind following the recent NME package tour, NYPC succeed in distilling a knowing pot pourri of 1981-inspired post-punk disco into something fleetingly vital where more serious minded souls have sounded naff. Live, already libidinous singles Ice Cream and The Bomb become 12” extended work-outs pumped out by a guitarist with a porn star moustache, a bassist called Igor with a working knowledge of A Certain Ratio riffs, a beanpole keyboardist aping two-fingered New Order House-lite while looking like she might actually own a pony, and a harmonising female drummer.
Bulmer herself is a strutting vision of asymmetrically frizzed hair, electric blue tights and, for one so hyper-active over a perfectly honed 40 minutes, a skirt so short as to be gynaecologically challenging. Such arresting charisma only heightens the NY, if not the PC effect on their best song, Grey, of Remain In Light era Talking Heads fused with a saucier B-52s.
This time next year New Young Pony Club will have either burst from over-excitement or else be emblazoned on the cover of every magazine in town. At least ID and Dazed And Confused can say they got their first.
The Herald, June 5th 2007
ends
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