Being Beta

Exercises in the higher banter with One of 26. Elsewhere called 'poet of adland'. By a whipple-squeezer. Find out why being beta is the new alpha: betarish at googlemail dot com

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Capsule: New Young Pony Club

They keep Club Koko in Camden waiting, as only the slim, arrogant ones can; and then appear without a breath and immediately launch into their best song. 'Get Lucky' crashes and pulverises, with its minor key insistence and relentless undercarriage. It's a totemic slab of a calling card, the inversion of love to mere 'luck' clever and insidious. Nothing else will be this good in their short set. But when that's your signature, what else do you need?

NYPC settle into electro-pop bliss and set poses. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - worryingly - and New Order are the obvious touchstones. Everyone has their stance. Guitarist Andy is all enthusiasm, Igor on bass the poseur, Lou oozes class and glitter behind her keyboards and Sarah in the engine room does not stop all night.

You could take the boys home to meet your dad, the other girls to meet your mum. But it's Tahita you'd want to take to bed. She prowls, slinks, erupts across the stage and makes everyone hers. It is awesomely erotic. Whirling and bouncing and plunging in a yellow wrap-round dress and red trainers, she is the ultimate in fantasies. 'Ice Cream' is introduced with the exhortation to "dance from your groin". She ends it in a post-coital heap, declaring it better than sex. On that evidence, who'd argue? Plenty in the audience would like to find out, though.

The 'nu-rave' tag that NYPC carry comes not from glow sticks or whistles. It's something far more substantial: their ability to induce a sheer giddy rush of euphoria last experienced in about 1992, when happy hardcore was all the rage. It's coming up, with all that entails. And for those of us old enough to know better, dancing manically in our raincoats like Manc dads, they makes us forget that we are on a nostalgia trip. (Although the carpets upstairs at Koko are rubbish for dancing on.)

In the future Tahita will be an indie-dance Amazonian leaving the rest of NYPC behind, in the same way Bjork launched her adventures via the Sugarcubes. But for now treasure the cowbells, the delirium, the energy and joy of five people who know they are going to blow the minds of many people this summer. This is one pony that ain't pony.

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