Major Lazer (as featured on
last month's podcast) are set to play at The Tuesday Club on 1st December. Should be well worth the £6.50 entry - get your ticket from Sheffield Union
here or at the box office.
Read my review of the non-electronic but excellent No Age gig in Manchester a couple of weeks back over at
Forge Media. I also wrote a review of Casiokids' (pictured) Sheffield gig last month which didn't get published so I thought I'd post it here instead:
Casiokids @ Sheffield Union, 12/10/2009
“The band is called Casiokids and this is the first time we have come to Sheffield”. Sadly, I'm not sure Sheffield gave the Norwegian electropop group much incentive to make a return visit, but they still gave it their all.
I arrived to find Fusion quite literally empty and though the room gradually filled up, even by the end of the night we would have struggled to form two football teams. In the vacuous surroundings of the Fusion Bar, this small turnout made for an uncomfortable atmosphere - something that became painfully apparent when support act Shake Aletti took to the stage. The Sheffield two-piece delivered their brand of disco-influenced, Chromeo-esque pop with enthusiasm, but their attempts to get the audience on their feet went unrecognised, leaving singer Steve to circle the barren dancefloor alone.
Mercifully, Casiokids succeeded in moving the, er, crowd to its feet. The band expand on the traditional five-piece format with the distinctive sounds of synthesisers, wood blocks and cow bells driving many of their songs. Hailing from Norway, they sing in their native tongue, but this does not make their music inaccessible. Dreamy, harmonised vocals simply float along atop the cheerful and uplifting zephyr that is Casiokids' sound.
An extended introduction to recent single 'Fot I Hose' built up anticipation as each band member commandeered the wood blocks in turn, and when the song's infectious bassline finally dropped, the audience burst (as far as twenty people are able to burst) into movement. Against a backdrop of tinsel and toy-animal adorned keyboards, the appearance at this point of a monkey suited man on the dancefloor felt like it was meant to be.
I was reminded of music lessons at school - playing around with pre-programmed beats and dated synthesiser voices on the cheap keyboards whenever the teacher's back was turned. Casiokids, as their name (and that they once did a tour of Norwegian pre-schools) suggests, capture this spirit of childlike electronic experimentation and, unlike in those school music lessons, are fortunate enough to be able to combine it with real musical ability and charm.
