long with the elegantly wasted CBGB-era Lower East Side sharp short shocked guitar work of the Strokes and Longwave and post-punk drive of Radio 4 and Interpol, nu-electro is the third member of the troika of post-Ramones, post-disco sounds currently moving along Gotham’s musical landscape. Fischerpooner, one of the veterans of the NYC’s Electroclash Nation, is—along with the ubiquitous Miss Kittin—the face of the movement. It’s a deserved but misdirected honor for a band whose clamor for the spotlight and the style pages detracts and distracts from their pleasantly fresh, varied synthpop.


This is the third time out for this album. First released in 2000 on For Those Who Know—“in conjunction with a series of performances at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, March 28-April 1, 2000” according to the label — the record was released on the influential International Deejay Gigolos album last year before being purchased by the Ministry of Sound for a reported £2 million and a push at the mainstream. The move has paid off so far: The low-key decadence (“Looks good / Feels good”) of New Order-worthy single “Emerge” landed on BBC Radio One’s A-list and in the UK top 25.


That single and a cover of Wire’s “The 15th” are the centerpieces of the record and as strong and immediately lovable a pair of songs as have been featured on any record this year. The fluidity and effortless melody of the cover even very nearly improves on the stunning original. It seems an odd choice perhaps, but it’s a fitting cover because the Wire song seemed anomalous at the time, too. The Wire track took “Mannequin” and the synth-infused bits of Chairs Missing as a jumping-off point and released the band’s melodies from layers of more obtuse sound. For Fischerspooner, it works in a similar, opposite direction—taking the cold detachment too often associated with minimalist synth sounds and cloaking it in delicate warmth. Whereas Wire’s synth work was almost ice-cold — a walk on the oft-bleak post-punk permafrost that matched its increasingly dark lyrics — Fischerpooner’s bleeps and bloops are almost graceful and always inviting.


Considering the hype and the posturing, this is a surprisingly lush and diverse record. The bizarre proclamations (“Our love show is going to be bigger than Star Wars” or whatever) and attempts at lip-synched, cabaret subversion are sort of trite red herrings. They — and that enormous purchase of the album by the Ministry of Sound — netted Fischerspooner quite a few column inches, but did little to encourage my confidence in their sound. The posturing and Dead or Alive costumes had them set in my mind as retro-pranksters or aggressive New Romantic Alec Empires. What a surprise then to find the decadence and aggression hinted at in the look is largely absent and instead to discover a record of fluid synth-pop with melodies to spare — and loving and knowing respite from most of the pastiche of the rest of the electroclash scene.


For all of the grasps at New Order’s synth-pop crown or Soft Cell’s synth noir image, the most obvious touchstone here is the less-fancied Yazoo. Fischerspooner’s one musician/one vocalist set up and brittle opulence recalls the delicate beauty of Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet, the heart of early 1980s synthpop. Casey Spooner’s soft, almost fragile vocals lift “Tone Poem” to “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” (OK, so there is a little Soft Cell here) or “Only You” heights, and “Ersatz” offers lush Kraftwerkian layers of tones for which Clarke would have died. Like Yazoo, Fischerspooner’s greatest strengths are the emotion and vulnerability lurking beneath the band’s veneer.


It’s a shame that many people will likely be turned off by the inanity of the “movement” of nu-electro, with its pompous fashion and “THE FACE” spreads. When the bounce and pop of synth pop is mixed with a smile rather than a wink, it truly is offering some moments of brilliance. Like hip-hop, frustration with the image and the ethos of nu-electro and synth-pop is too often coloring the response, a knee-jerk reaction that at its worst has elements of the anti-hedonism (and, dare I say, the anti-Other) of Steve Dahl-style disco hatred. So don’t worry about the press, the catch phrases, the proclamations of the sound of Now, just listen and enjoy. When the music is this frequently excellent, hate the marketing game but don’t hate the player.