Andy Bell
Electric Blue
(Sanctuary)
Sometimes artists' choices of collaborator reveal the aesthetic to which they aspire. For his first solo foray, Erasure's Andy Bell works with the singer from a 1980s synth-pop group (Propaganda's Claudia Brucken) and the frontman of a glitterball-friendly roadshow (Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters). So, no experimentalism here. With Electric Blue, Bell is out to show how much an unreconstructed disco fiend he is, with an unwavering taste for songs about yearning desires set to four-to-the-floor rhythms.
It seems like the energy that Vince Clarke's more po-faced electronics have fenced in for years is released in one go. Bell's album is the mirror opposite to Erasure's last album, the melancholic Nightbird. Electric Blue is the sound of unremitting revelry at New York's Club 54 - Crazy, the taster single off the album, actually reprises a line off Blondie's Rapture.
It might not offer much sonic ingenuity, and its brashness harbours none of the arty ambitions of upstarts like Fischerspooner and Peaches, but Electric Blue is still strangely alluring. The unrelenting beat, capped with some great melodies (thanks partly to British remixer duo Manhattan Clique), would easily induce some foot-tapping in the most artful snob.
