Alpinestars
Electronica / Electronica
Richard Woolgar and Glyn Thomas, two manchester based artists with a fetish for electricity presenting their second long player, ‘White Noise’. A multi-dimensional amalgam of middle-European influences, it comprises 11 tracks of driving machine-funk, moody elegies and class-A disco music. Depeche Mode, Giorgio Moroder, Phoenix and New Order are some of the people who it may remind you of. Quite possibly at the same time.
HOMOELECTRIC Famously Alpinestars only came into being after the promoters of (sadly deceased) Manchester hotspot Homoelectric - imagine 500 Soft Cell groupies in a down-at-heel lesbian cabaret bar - challenged Glyn and Richard to write an hour of peachy keen autobahn synth-pop. In just over a week. Taking their name from Glyn's mountain bike, they fulfilled the commission with about 20 minutes to spare. ‘The first time we ever did a gig as Alpinestars we couldn’t believe how people took notice,’ says Richard. ‘Previously, we’d put months of effort into a band, and there’d be eight people there. And half of them wouldn’t be arsed. As Alpinestars everyone was really up for it!’
Inspired, and signed a few days later, the majority of debut album 'B.A.S.I.C' was written in the same way, tunes banged out in a day, at home. 'White Noise' has been a far more considered, studio-based affair, but they’re still masochists. Both Robodisco and Fabric were last year treated to tailor-made Alpinestars live sets that ran a clubbier gamut from filtered disco funk to gnarly breakbeat-based noise.
|