Curry & Coco
Remember the time in the late 1970’s when punks traded in their guitars for synths, and re-configured disco as a bastard brother of garage rock? Well you should, especially if you weren’t around for it. And here, now, to recreate the raw excitement and sonic abandon of post-punk’s wildest hour are Thomas Pliem and Sylvain Przybylski, the duo known as Curry and Coco.
C&C began playing together in 2006 in their hometown of Lille in Northern France. Close friends from early childhood, they acquired their joint nickname, Curry and Coco, from a Thai au pair who looked after them both. Their symbiotic relationship and engagingly untidy appearance – once compared in the French media to that of “Croatian tennis players circa 1973” – have always intrigued onlookers. Suffice to say that an intuitive bond was in place long before they decided to express it in music. “We are like brothers, and yet not,” Pliem observes, enigmatically.
Bored by the processed perfection of most modern recordings, they found an echo of the authenticity they craved in the music that flourished, briefly, in the years before they were born. “This was a time, 1978 actually, when it felt like everything was happening,” says Przybylski. “There were no rules. We fell in love with Devo, The Human League, the first Joy Division album. The electro rhythms of Giorgio Moroder were a great influence on us. The electronic groups like Cabaret Voltaire were changing the vocabulary of rock, and even the guitar bands like Gang Of Four were doing things differently.” Aside from the inspirational example of the French synthesiser band The Droids – a theatrical post-punk trio from the 70’s, known only in France – C&C are not big on the recent efforts of fellow countrymen like Daft Punk and Justice. “We’re not keen on French stuff. Too many samples, too much fashionable posing.”
Their commitment to doing things differently is obvious for all to hear, and it is fiercely, ideologically old-school. C&C use no samples, sequencers or backing tapes. Pliem plays live drums, while Przybylski employs only vintage analogue synthesisers – when he isn’t punching the air and belting out vocals. “I think today people need to hear the truth,” says Przybylski. “Our aim is to make something true, even if we sometimes make mistakes, and not something that was made up by a computer. Everything with us begins in our dark and dirty basement in Lille. In this way we think of ourselves as more like a rock and roll band, although we call our music ‘pop de danse.’”
C&C are passionate about live performance and have played over 100 gigs, mainly in French clubs, in the past 2 years. According to Pliem: “We like to play very loud, and our audience like to wave their arms and sing.” In response to their popularity with female fans they regularly perform a roughed-up version of the Cyndi Lauper classic, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. “It’s meant for a laugh.” Critical reactions to their shows have been ecstatic, bordering on hysterical. The editor of the leading French culture mag Les Inrockuptibles, Jean Daniel Beauvallet, compared a C&C live show to “Kraftwerk and the Jackson Five having sex in the gymnasium of an Ivy League university.” In another review Beauvallet likened them to “a blitzkrieg on the dancefloor : two of them, but the noise of the B-52’s bombarding Daft Punk.”
In 2010 Curry and Coco are at last ready to make their debut as recording artists. Working with producer David Kosten ( Faultline, Bat For Lashes) they patiently constructed a studio sound that captures the riotous energy of their concerts. An ep, Sex Is Fashion – to be released in January 2010 - will be followed by the album We Are Beauty in April 2010. When it comes to singles, C&C are spoilt for choice. Do they go with the tumultuous anthem Who’s Next, or play it safer with Top Of The Pop, or the gloriously catchy – and funny – Dancing Like A Monkey?
The truth is that every one of the tracks on We Are Beauty sounds like a potential hit – and a vital antidote to the formulaic pop-by-numbers that now clogs the charts and the airwaves. “We have international ambitions,” says Przybylski. “It may sound proud to say but we are here to do great things. We Are Beauty means that we want to make people gather together for a great experience.”
Robert Sandall
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