Handsome Furs - SoundKapital

Wed 20th Jul, 2011 in Music Reviews

Possibly the best Canadian husband-and-wife synth-pop duo in music, Handsome Furs, return with their third full length, Sound Kapital.

For fans of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown – and, of course, fans of Handsome Furs – the sound of Sound Kapital will not come as a surprise; as fellow Wolf Parader Spencer Krug did with his side-project Sunset Rubdown, Dan Boeckner demonstrates where exactly half of Wolf Parade’s brittle indie-pop sound come from. The equation runs thus; Krug brings the tinkle, Boeckner the squelch, Krug brings the warble, Boeckner the croon. In partnership with his wife, writer Alexei Perry, Boeckner crafts a squelchy, croony electro-tinged LP.

Beyond reductive games of attribute-the-sound though, Handsome Furs have a lot more going on. They have an avowed interest in the ongoing mutation of global pop culture, and in particular the various points at which trash and opulence collide. On Sound Kapital, Boeckner and Perry have cannily positioned themselves at this juncture. Alluded to in Beockner’s lyrics and in the liner notes – such largely-ignored locales as Wuhan, Manila, Ljubljana and Skopje are name-checked, and the title of the LP itself is an allusion to Beijing’s underground punk rock scene – it is through the sonics of Sound Kapital that this push-pull tension is most rewardingly played out.

For all of the eclectic influences and conceptual threads running through the album, the Handsome Furs can still nail reasonably straight-up electro-pop. Indeed, the bold opener When I Get Back starts up like a global R&B club banger, with a blast of sugary synth and a squealing siren. Set against this everywhere-and-nowhere, David Guetta-esque backdrop, Boeckner’s lament for home takes on added significance.

Such genre pastiche is effective in its own right, but it is all the better for the way in which it offsets the trashy side of the Handsome Furs equation; scuzzy, frantic, and a little bit sexy. Damage is all of these things; powered by buzzing synths that crackle to a standstill in the bridge, Boeckner attempts to squeeze his impassioned vocals through a brutal slap-echo effect, mangling his words and adding to the sense of general panic. If When I Get Back is an R&B superclub, then Damage is the sleazy strip club at the far end of the block.

To another’s ears, these odd little numbers may represent album lowlights, but the world has all the mannered, synth-inflected pop music that it needs right now. What the world doesn’t have is Neuromancer come to life in musical form, and on Damage, Cheap Music, and the magisterial No Feelings the Handsome Furs are that good, and that strange. Elsewhere on Sound Kapital, they are good in the more familiar way. The relation between the two aesthetics, the fact that the band prove that such a relation exists, is crucial, and to the benefit of both; Sound Kapital presents both sides of the world that Handsome Furs inhabit, and it’s a very interesting place.