Monday 19 October 2009

Little Boots - Earthquake - Little Boots Week

One of the artists we’ve blogged about most this year is Little Boots. So in celebration of this fact, this week is 'Little Boots Week'. One blog every day concerning 'The Boots' or a subject related in some vague way to her and then that's it for the year. It's a promise. No more Little Boots on Breaking More Waves this year - not even in our Top Ten Albums of the year list which follows in December. There have been some highs - her ICA show last year (here), the out and out synth fizz of Remedy (here) and some lows New In Town (here). The album was good fun, as an example of shiny well produced pop, but wasn’t perfect. We believe there were a couple of duds built in the machinery and not enough of the initial stylophone, tenori-on disco girl geekiness that endeared us to Little Boots in the first place.

Earthquake is not one of those duds. It’s the obvious follow up to Remedy, being another catchy, science lab explosion of synth pop with Victoria getting into your head with the chorus “Every little earthquake, every little heartbreak going unheard, every little landslide, caught it in my hand I won’t say a word.” Thankfully the video director hasn’t forced Little Boots into some terrible dance routine, instead there’s a retro futurist sky-space theme which links neatly to the cover art of the album, whilst Little Boots occupies herself by having a little stab at her Casio whilst she star gazes reflectively and planets explode. There's also a great remix of the track by Breaking More Waves favourites Yes Giantess that you can grab here.

Whilst for Little Boots pop career Earthquake may be a continuation from Remedy, it certainly isn’t any great progression. When the campaign for Hands finishes and it is time to come up with something new we hope that Victoria will turn her back from obvious modern pop and embrace her true inner geek. She’s talked about her love of Kraftwerk and has added Jean Michel Jarre as one of her favourite videos on You Tube; and it is the path of these synth gods that we would like Little Boots to follow. Rather than Greg Kurstin produced polished radio hits, how fantastic would it be for Little Boots to wheel out some big analogue synths and produce a soundscape of lush, sequenced, spaced out pulsing minimalist electronica to a pop audience ? There has yet to be a female solo performer who has taken such a sound to the masses, boffin like wizardry being for the most part left to men. Of course this is just a fantasy, but if it ever became a reality our marriage proposal would be winging its way to Little Boots.

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