New release showcases Klaxons

By Kelsey Whipple

Published Nov. 9, 2007

It must be good to be in Klaxons right now. These days, it is impossible to mention the Technicolor lads who started the new-rave revolution and proceeded to laugh in its face without hinting at some serious swag (Mercury Prize) and even more serious expectations (sophomore album?). For the uninitiated, these are the self-titled "Four Horsemen of 2012," the electro-rock avatars whose gravity-defying hair, kaleidoscopic getup and disorderly dance-rock helped them single-handedly resurrect the glow-stick and paint the U.K. music world DayGlo. If theirs is a case of too much, too soon, it's too bad.

Suitably, the band's newest release — alas, not of their own combustion — is proof that the foursome's taste in music matches its taste in everything else: colorful. The 27-song A Bugged Out Mix By Klaxons follows in the steps of past Bugged Out compilations from Simian Mobile Disco and Erol Alkan by including songs from the band's personal playlists and chosen by vocalist Jamie Reynolds.

The spectacularly offbeat collection of songs is divided into a two-disk format: the first (Bugged Out!), a blistering mash-up of dance-heavy club stompers; the second (Bugged In!), an eclectic panoramic of some of their influences.

Listeners quickly get the feeling that the soundtrack of the Klaxons' bus is more interesting than whatever their indie peers are listening to.

The majority of the first 13 songs on disc one are straightforward club grooves following a formula Klaxons fans should be familiar with: dark + repetitive + relentless = fabulous. It is clear from the fusion of the well known Justice and The Chemical Brothers, with the possibly made-up Mogg & Naudascher, that these four know more about music than they let on.

The final song, the Brodinski remix of Klaxons' "It's Not Over Yet," ends things with, if not a bang, then an overly crackly monologue by Aleister Crowley. They might be strange, but these are not tracks you would rather die than hear on the radio one more time.

If disc one leaves you wondering how the guys in Klaxons got their taste in music, disc two tells you who to blame for it. The last 45 minutes include pleasantly spastic throw-ins, including a hidden track from fellow countrymen Blur (Think Tank's "Me, White Noise"), and the barely tolerable Liars track "They Don't Want Your Corn, They Want Your Kids."

At some point, it was not even surprising to learn the guys are Wu-Tang fans. The Clan's classic "Shame On a Nigga" makes an unexpected appearance on disc two alongside songs from unlikely album-mates Todd Rundgren and The United States of America, with Roy Orbison's "It's Over" (get it?) rounding out the blend of art rock, Britpop and '60s psychadelica.

The end result is an ultimately rewarding if sometimes disturbing field trip through the little gray cells of one of NME magazine's most peculiar cover stories. If you are looking for a good way to fry your synapses and then soak them in nostalgia, you could do much worse than this. Still, let's hope their next album is their own.