ARTIST INFO

 

 

‘Live at Dead Lake’ is the second album from art-pop experimentalists Hot Club de Paris. Expanding on the quick-fire tech-ridden pop punk blasts and wit-fuelled commentaries of 2006’s Drop it Til it Pops, Hot Club de Paris continue to explore their use of skewed rhythms, accomplished musicianship and poetical themes. These 14 new pop songs about girls, ghosts and generally being alive boast soaring arrangements, sparkling guitar refrains and booby trap after booby trap of beaming hooks.

 

Since Hot Club de Paris embarked upon their punishing tour schedule two years ago (playing with artists and bands such as Jamie T, Maximo Park, Battles, Foals, The Who), the three-piece have developed into an almost single-celled organism and have become one of the tightest and entertaining bands on the world’s small and sweaty stages. After spending the entire summer of 2007 in their hometown of Liverpool working on their follow up, the band called upon Chicago producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine, Ugly Cassanova, Sea and Cake, Chin Up Chin Up) to document their new songs. The band spent 7 weeks with Deck in Chicago who became a like a 4th member of the band, helping them add new textures and sounds with extra percussion and a multitude of wonderful and bizarre instruments.

 

‘Live at Dead Lake’ kicks off with ‘Call Me Mr Demoltion Ball’ an upbeat sing-along jig about a good party gone bad. ‘My Little Haunting’ is constructed of complex time signatures and skewed grooves. Paul Rafferty and Alasdair Smith’s start-stop rhythm section twists and turns as the lyrics detail a failed relationship and likens the experience to a haunting by a cartoon ghost.

 

‘I Wasn’t Being Heartless When I said Your Favourite Song Lacked Heart’ is a two and a half minute blast of Cap N’Jazz-inspired pop and ‘For Parties Past and Present’ is a short pop explosion featuring Alasdair’s relentless drumming technique and Matthew Smith’s sparkling guitar work.

 

Next up is The Talking-Heads-infused ‘Let Go Of Everything’ - it grooves away as Matthew’s signature guitar patter babbles out contagious melodies and hooks over the top. ‘The Friendship Song’, named after a rap song performed by New York comedy troupe Stella, is a late-period Don Caballero-inspired three handed tapping guitar duet.

 

The first single to be taken from the album is ‘Hey! Housebrick’ documents the creeping claustrophobia of small-town living and the destruction and devastation produced by such negative forces. Guest vaocalists from Liverpool twee-sters Puzzle were called upon for backing vocal duties and dainty handclaps.

 

The stirring ‘Boy Awaits Return of the Runaway Girl’ features lyricist Paul Rafferty updating well-spun yarns of love and loss in the small towns. Brian Deck’s production adds intriguing texture and shape to the recording. ‘The Dice Just Wasn’t Loaded From The Start’ sees Paul Rafferty and Dave Davison (of Chicago math-rock band Maps and Atlases) team up to deliver this tender, nostalgic acoustic duet.

 

The latter stages of the LP see Hot Club de Paris covering a classic song -‘The Anchor’- in ode to one of their favourite bands, The Minutemen. ‘This Thing Forever’ tells the tale of a city-wide wrecking spree whilst ‘Found Sleeping’ clangs and clashes around and is beautiful and brittle in equal parts.

 

If someone was to ask who it is that influences Hot Club de Paris, the band would probably give you a list that looked something like this: Owls, Don Caballero, Billy Bragg, Tim Etchells, XTC, The Minutemen and Mike Watt, Storm&Stress, Joan of Arc, Talking Heads, Cap N Jazz and John Fahey.