Klaxons

Xan Valleys

Photo: David Ellis

BY Cam LindsayPublished Feb 16, 2007

Innocently labelling their overexcited music as "new rave” in a bid to get some attention, Klaxons’ plan has more than succeeded. Inadvertently, they’ve caused a craze in the UK that’s turned fluorescent tees and glow sticks into the latest fashion accessories. Inspired by the vitality of rave music, they’ve used it as a starting point for the band and run amok. Blaring sirens, imposing bass lines and insane tempo changes interfere with their set up of creating an interplanetary clusterfuck. Xan Valleys is a taster EP designed to build excitement for their debut album, Myths of the Near Future, out next year. Lead single "Gravity’s Rainbow” travels in a psychedelic swirl that turns seemingly harmless indie rock into a groove-packed tornado by its end. "Atlantis to Interzone” really attests these young visionaries though; air horns, a breakneck pace and jarring transitions make it the most exciting thing I’ve heard all year. A cover of Kicks Like A Mule’s comically memorable rave anthem "The Bouncer” adds a nice touch, demonstrating they know their history. Lyrically embracing fried geniuses like W.S. Burroughs and J.G. Ballard, and the harebrained religion of Dischordianism’s chaos theory, their concepts get a little convoluted, but that’s part of the fun. Klaxons are aiming for a galaxy far, far away, and their mania for building dance floor energy is enough to take everyone there.

So, you guys are responsible for the term "new rave”? Keyboardist/vocalist James Righton: Jamie [Reynolds, bassist/vocalist] and our friend Joe, who put out our first single, were talking about the genres wondering what hadn’t been revived. So, they came up with the term "new rave” as a joke. And now it’s in worldwide media. It’s quite strange… it’s not a tag that describes our music very well. I mean, there’s something going on — bands that play guitar can be played in clubs. Definitely in the UK, there’s a lot of energy and excitement at the gigs, and a lot of audience participation, which it’s all about really. But the term is actually quite crass and too narrow to describe our music.

How does "Dischordianism” relate to your music? The whole writing process and nature of our band is chaotic. We’re three people from different places trying to create something as a whole. It’s really tough and such a constant fight to create one kind of vision, and it is chaos but it’s controlled and has to have a direction that we all agree with. We’re not the kind of band that’s into one thing; we’re a mesh of all styles of music because we’ve never restricted our interests.
(Modular/Fontana North)

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