HELLABUSTER

Tracklisting: 1. Hellabuster 2. Seven Silvers 3. Radical Plains 4. Choco Pudding 5. Pour Moi 6. I Won't Come Back 7. Charade 8. Nothing More Than Anything 9. Sandy Moffat 10. Inanimate Inamorato 11. My Room 12. No Trains 13. Dawning Audio b2b.goodtogo.de/article/player/1562411 Watch videos: vimeo.com/20563583 vimeo.com/20334681 šLast time round we didn't even mix our recordings›, says Nick McCarthy, recalling the making of Box Codax' decidedly unpolished 2006 debut Only An Orchard Away. šI had absolutely nothing but my computer and a little synth I borrowed from Alex› (Kapranos, his band mate in Franz Ferdinand) All the vocals were done on the sort of clip-on mic that TV presenters wear on their collars. šIt was,› McCarthy admits, špretty 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, from the opening title track, which switches time signatures like a werewolf going through mood swings, via the glamourous 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 vibes evoked by 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 colliding with Sandy Moffat, a punk song seemingly accompanied by the Church of Jonathan Richman School Choir, Inanimate Inamorato, a lament for a štimid inanimate friend›, the cinematic solipsism of My Room and the android-on-half-empty-batteries reggae-disco of No Trains, all the way to Dawning, the wistful sibling to šSeven Silvers›. Large chunks of Hellabuster where 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 Seven Silvers, I Won't Come Back, Hellabuster and Nothing More Than Anything. More recording on the latter three numbers as well as Sandy Moffat and Choco Pudding was done at Joseph Mount of Metronomy's home studio. Jonas Imbery and Mathias Modica from Munich-based label Gomma Records had their hands in Seven Silvers and Pour Moi, while for the songs that required an extra dose of rock (Hellabuster, I Won't Come Back) none other than AC/DC's long-serving engineer Mike Fraser took control of the mixing desk. For each of the songs on Hellabuster a video will be made by one of the band's many artistically inclined friends (Franz bass player Bob Hardy's already finished take on šChoco Pudding› proving an early culinary highlight). What started as the casual collaboration of two guys who only ever showed the backs of their heads in publicity shots has grown into a kind of collective project. Whether this expanded version of Box Codax will ever make it to a stage, Nick McCarthy cannot tell: šWe might have to get a big band in. We've never played live before. Only once we stumbled into some sort of Jesus freak party by mistake. We were completely drunk, and they had this band set-up, so we just got up onstage and played.š Which somehow sounds like just the perfect setting for a Box Codax show. As Ragnew sings in My Room: šWe're exchanging smiles and anticipating good fun›, because šin the dark we do the things we never dared to do.› And the Jesus freaks scattered, terrified.