A REVIEW of Django Django’s 2015 album Born Under Saturn described the work of the half Scottish, London-based outfit as less by “a rock band and more a team of workers, in perfect sync with their internal machineries”.
Formed as students at Edinburgh College of Art, Django Django did indeed sound like a disparate, self-contained team on their Mercury Prize-nominated 2012 debut album. Taught and playful, their meld of surfy guitar lines, big beats and sophisticated harmonies were both unique and collaborative, an ethos which continues with forthcoming third album Marble Skies.
“I guess we’re all shying away from the spotlight, from that idea of the clichéd rock band,” says drummer Dave Maclean. “I was always more interested in people like Arthur Russell or Andy Weatherall and Massive Attack, people who were taking the idea of a band and playing with it.”
Cliché doesn’t come naturally to Django Django, a band whose hint of prankster absurdism recalls The Beta Band, the much-loved Fife group Maclean’s brother John was a part of. It was John’s videos for Beta Band offshoot The Aliens, and for the Djangos’ 2013 single Hand of Man which caught the attention of actor Michael Fassbender, leading to a partnership which last found fruition with 2015’s Sundance Award-winning western Slow West. John Maclean also directs the Hastings-shot video to Tic-Tac-Toe, Django Django’s topsy-turvy recent single. John says the video “could be about the fading era of the beach arcades, time moving too fast, love and games, horror and happiness” but is “actually about a man who needs to go buy a pint of milk to make a cup of tea”.
That modesty is evident in his brother’s band too. If there are egos here, they are subsumed within the wider Django Django consciousness. Dave is their main producer, despite them no doubt being offered the pick of the big names. Main singer Vincent Neff may have sublime lungs, but his vocals were ditched when the song — a mid-tempo, Fleetwood Mac-tinged synth epic Surface To Air — demanded it.
“The vocals are done by Rebecca Taylor, who was in Slow Club,” says Dave, noting that he produced Taylor’s first solo album under the guise of Self Esteem for his Kick + Clap label.
“It’s good to work with different people, shake it up a bit, freshen things up, have a different vocalist, a different drummer,” Maclean continues.
That “different drummer” was Metronomy’s Anna Prior, who worked in London with Neff, bassist Jimmy Dixon and Scottish synthsman Tommy Grace while Maclean was in Dundee. Tracks were sent to him there, where he “chopped things up and worked stuff out”.
“The drumming is a mixture of some of Anna’s drumming, some of mine, demos and drum machines,” says Maclean. “When we put an album together it’s bits and bobs that I stitch together. It’s a mad scientist type of approach.”
Though there has always been a clubby vibe to Django Django, the dance rhythms are ramped up on nocturnal new single Beam Me Up and the brilliantly banging In Your Beat.
“Before Django Django, when I was a student in Dundee and Edinburgh, I was a DJ,” he says. “In fact, I sat in my flat for about five years making techno. So every so often I’ll get into making some of those little dance beats into the Django Django tracks. ”
Sleeker than its predecessor, Marble Skies – which is also released as a double album on Rough Trade featuring a disc of dub mixes by roots producer Wrongtom – is more expansive and refined than that 2012 debut.
“We didn’t even use amps for that record, we just plugged everything in to a computer and went for it,” says Maclean. “We have definitely got better at developing our own way of doing things. ”
February 26, Fat Sams, Dundee, 7pm, £19.25. Tickets: bit.ly/DjangoDundee
February 27, The Garage, Aberdeen, 7.30pm, £19.25. Tickets: bit.ly/DjangoAberdeen
March 1, SWG3, Glasgow, 7pm, £19.25. Tickets: bit.ly/DjangoGlasgow
Marble Skies is released on January 26 via Because Music.
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