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CD
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GOMMA 151CD
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This is the second album from Box Codax, the follow-up to 2006's Only An Orchard Away. "Last time round we didn't even mix our recordings," says Nick McCarthy, "I had absolutely nothing but my computer and a little synth I borrowed from Alex" (Kapranos, his bandmate in Franz Ferdinand). All the vocals were done on the sort of clip-on mic that TV presenters wear on their collars. "It was," McCarthy admits, "pretty extreme." Few who heard their first record would have expected this loose outfit that convenes in the ultra-rare and highly irregular gaps between Franz Ferdinand's activities to outgrow the limited ambitions of a side project, let alone to create such a glittering ball of sheer pop invention as their second album Hellabuster. The title track switches time signatures like a werewolf going through mood swings, there's the glamorous Moroder disco-beach romance "Seven Silvers," the eerie falsetto harmonies of "Radical Plains," the soundtrack to a chemically-enhanced kids' party that is "Choco Pudding," the crime mystery in a wrinkly raincoat "Pour Moi," the giddy games arcade hysteria of "I Won't Come Back," followed by "Charade," which is all pent-up desire in a self-catering holiday apartment. "Nothing More Than Anything" with its Spanish guitars and drunken waltzes collides with "Sandy Moffat," a punk song seemingly accompanied by the Church of Jonathan Richman School Choir, "Inanimate Inamorato" is a lament for a "timid inanimate friend," there is the cinematic solipsism of "My Room" and the android-on-half-empty-batteries reggae-disco of "No Trains," and finally "Dawning," the wistful sibling to "Seven Silvers." Large chunks of Hellabuster were produced in Nick and Manuela's former hometown Glasgow, where the many talents of Pabs Debussy aka Franz Ferdinand drummer Paul Thomson were in easy reach. Pabs provided beats and programming on four tracks. More recording was done at Joseph Mount of Metronomy's home studio and Jonas Imbery and Mathias Modica from Gomma Records had their hands in two more tracks. For the songs that required an extra dose of rock, none other than AC/DC's long-serving engineer Mike Fraser took control of the mixing desk.
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