WHEN one is hosting a foreign exchange student, the temptation to subvert their well-meaning attempts to learn the language of their host country can sometimes be overwhelming. So when your guest points inquisitively to a teacup, you earnestly explain that the correct word in English is "bumface" or "knockers", or something equally childish.
Close listening to exuberant Brazilian six-piece CSS suggests they might have been serial victims of such pranks. Their English lyrics are stuffed to the gunwales with celebratory lewdness and inappropriately employed sexual slang. "Suck suck suck!" is a favoured refrain, "Music is my sex!" another.
The raunchiness even extends to their name - famously, CSS stands for Cansei De Ser Sexy, Portugese for "tired of being sexy". They attribute the quote to Beyonce, but if she represents a cold, modern, airbrushed ideal of sexiness, CSS are the opposite: sweaty, enthusiastic and unafraid to get their handsdirty.Theirundisciplined approach extends to who's actually going to do the talking between songs - all five of their female members seem keen to share their impressions of Glasgow in general and the Barrowland ballroom in particular.
If most of the alarmingly young audience bought their NME ticket to see "new rave" pioneers Klaxons, they still give the visiting Brazilians the most enthusiastic of welcomes. It doesn't hurt that CSS make giddy party music, clacking synth-rock that fuses some of the best Casio noises of the 1980s with insistent percussion and chantalong choruses. They're not so much pushing the envelope as suggestively licking it.
They've recently threatened to relocate to Glasgow on the advice of their sometime collaborators The 1990s. It wouldcertainlymakeScotlanda sunnier place, and we could help them with their vocab.
Even if they're not quite as gleeful as CSS, Klaxons still have a decent sense of mischief. Their coining of the term "new rave" to describe their racket has caused a minor fashion-quake, rehabilitating the smiley faces, loon pants and glow-in-the-dark bracelets of the original summer of love.
In interviews, the London three-piece loftily cite JG Ballard as a formative influence. Their music is similarly textured and usually tense, comprising poundingdrumpatterns,multi-tracked vocals, rubbery basslines and a lot of unidentifiable scree. You get the sense that they want to create something both modern and timeless - myths of the near future of rock, to paraphrase their hero - but the truth is they often sound more like Hard-Fi overdosing on Ashes To Ashes-era Bowie.
Still, it's good to see bands who seem to be almost physically bursting with ideas getting such prominent support from the usually rather conservative New Musical Express, and while the "new rave" umbrella seems a little redundant, there is something quite unifying about the outrageous outfits on display.
Most of the audience look like they could genuinely be the children of those who experienced acid house first time round- and so the glowstick is passed to a new generation.
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