Eat More Cake? After this offering from the London based duo Andy Briggs and Matt Pearn, you’d be hard pushed to find any more room. Not only is ‘Climb the Ladder, Live the Dream’ a double EP release, but there is a whacking 12 tracks in total. The biggest question has to be if you’ve produced 12 tracks worthy of putting onto CD then why not just release an album of tracks?

London based electro popsters Rubicks are an outfit who've already caused quite some buzz due to high profile use of their music in Italian fashion house Valentino's latest campaign and a string of American, Canadian and European touring dates. Following 2009's IDIOT TIME EP and 2006's IN MINIATURE album, GIDDY UP is the four piece outfits latest release, another slice of slinky electro pop that slots them neatly into the Ladyhawke, La Roux, New Young Pony Club shaped musical hole.

With a blend of seductive female vocals, grinding bass rumbles, shimmering synth stabs and sinister guitar noise, GIDDY UP is superior sounding pop that takes its cues from the likes of Gary Numan, The Human League and Goldfrapp; dark and sinister in places yet shot through with a sugar sweet pop sensibility that lodges itself in your cerebral cortex and refuses to shift. Vanessa Anne Redd sings with a sultry by way of sleazy purr, delivering her vocals in ice cool style over a delicious electro pop soundtrack.

Released ahead of the band's forthcoming second album due this summer, GIDDY UP is a slice of superior sounding electro pop that finds Rubicks returning in fine form; certainly ones to watch.

Having had such great success with the release of first LP Aurora, then touring with our very own master of the electronic and eclectic arts, Patrick Wolf, it was time for The Deer Tracks to take a well deserved rest. They took to the small island called Eggegrund, off the coast of their hometown, Gavle, in eastern Sweden.

It was on this island that, David Lehnberg and Elin Lindfors, the two masterminds behind Deer Tracks, would call to the sea and the wind to inspire them. The effects, none the less, making Eggegrund,a haunting and expressive EP.

If the whole idea of a remix album is to take the originals and re-mould, re-imagine and re-interpret them into something altogether different and unique, then MISSING DEADLINES – SELECTED REMIXES, the latest project from Ulrich Schnauss is the very definition of the genre.

Choosing once again to team herself up with the highest pedigree production collaborator she can find, Charlotte Gainsbourg continues to make elegantly classy music with album number three, IRM. Following the Nigel Godrich produced 5:55 from 2006, a record which boasted contributions from the likes of Air and Jarvis Cocker, IRM sees Gainsbourg hooking up with Beck, the singer/songwriter handling production duties alongside composing, recording and co-writing the lyrics. 

What sort of person do you have to be to enjoy instrumental music? A scientist perhaps, or a mathematician? A late night raver, a DJ or a drum n’ bass fiend?

As their name suggests, Risqué are an electro-rock duo with a penchant for fetish wear and Pedro Almodovar films.  Other reviews I’ve found are mainly from alternative lifestyle mags like Bearded and Skin Two, hyping the group’s ‘sexy provocation and S&M links’.  So all that remains is for us to discover whether their music deserves a pat on the back or a good hard slap (and whether they’d enjoy it or not).

The title track is a piece of techno burlesque through which singer Nathalie breathily intones the title rather a lot.  It’s slightly kinky electronic decadence in the vein of Goldfrapp or the Kylie’s comeback stuff.  Things continue in this vein through the tracks ‘Push The Button’ and ‘I Want Your Number’, until we get to the first of the many cover versions on this album- Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’, which is something of a letdown, any attempt at raunch abandoned in favour of a straight cover with synths instead of guitars.  ‘Marilyn’ suffers from a dodgy name checking bit (Madonna, Britney, etc,   are all fakes compared to Marilyn Monroe- dull, as Madonna inadvertently proved that herself years ago) and a cringey Euro-rap middle section.  Things pick up again with ‘Hotline’, which is reminiscent of bands like Daft Punk or Air.  ‘Do You Believe In Heaven?’ has a real Kraftwerk feel to it, and then we get a whiplash-sharp cover of the Velvets’ ‘Venus in Furs’, all synths and whip samples, enlivened further by Nathalie’s vocals making sound a bit Nouvelle Vague meet Depeche Mode.  ‘Plastic Lover’ is too reminiscent of Rogue Traders’ ‘Voodoo Child’ to escape adverse comment.  ‘Superstitious’ goes into Kylie overdrive, before diverting down the euro-house route again with ‘Deshabille-toi’.  ‘Can’t Stop’ is more Kraftwerk.  Things wind up with a cover of ‘Disorder’.  As anyone who’s seen Twenty Four Hour Party People will know, interpreting the music of Joy Division is not something to be approached lightly, but Risqué pull it off with electronic aplomb and cold Teutonic vocals of which Ian Curtis would undoubtedly have approved.

Glitzy, louche, glam and oh-so-decadent, ‘Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down’ had me nodding my head along as I reviewed it, which made typing a bit of a challenge.  Yes, there are some distinctly iffy bits, but this album will fill dancefloors wherever tracks are played, or at least having people tapping their feet, depending how tightly done up their bondage gear is.

Biography

Risqué – French vixen Nathalie and her Welsh husband Huw – combine their lavish soundscapes with a series of incredible collaborations from the likes of dance pop diva Billie Ray Martin and New York City’s legendary transsexual sexbomb and muse of David LaChapelle, Amanda Lepore.