Ringtones from The Ting Tings

Thu, Jul 17 01:05 AM

The two-trick pony of one-guy, one-gal bands got a 21st century spur-kick with The White Stripes (Ike and Tina Turner, The Carpenters and other duos, of course, doing their bit for jugalbandis from much before). So here comes The Ting Tings, the Brit band made up of the frenetic Katie White and the well-goggled Jules De Martino.

The cover of their debut album, We Started Nothing, gives us a clue to the sound we can expect: Katie peering in like a Debbie Harry from her CBGB's days and Jules looking like he's hung out with Lou Reed at the bar a bit too long. And we aren't disappointed.

The strumming that starts 'Great DJ', punctuated by drum machine 'pings' has DIY Punk written all over it. The chorus, "Imagine all the girls/ a-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah/ and the boys, a-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah/ and the strings/ ee-ee-ee-ee, ee-ee-ee-ee/ and the drums, the drums, the drums and #8230;" lovingly brings us back to Psycho killer territory.

The arthouse ruckusness continues with a twist in That's not my name. Katie is bending the words and the tune as good as any Beyonce and #8230; until the chorus, where she rat-tat-tats cheerleader-style.

Fruit machine is a slightly gratuitous number in which Katie does a Lily Allen with her cockney bits intact. The real against-the-grain moment happens in Traffic light, a simple, wonderful ditty in which Katie tells the guy not to be a 'traffic light' as "With all things said/ You turn to red" following up with the gentle plea, "Let's not have a breakdown/ not another breakdown".

Deceptively fairy-like, Katie's got something more than just a frock-wearing chanteuse about her in this song. Shut up and let me go is a post-punk, post-feminist funkadelic that has shades of German arthouse band Chicks on Speed.

Keep your head is a head-bopper of a pop tune. The synth is soothing and the noddability of the song increases as it proceeds.

The tempo again shifts in Be the one, a gentle number that the general theme of the album is: I'm not taking the crap in this relationship any more. Or something like that.

But don't worry. As numbers like the trippy, groovy Impacilla Carpisung and the riff-laden, falsetto-drenched We started nothing goes to show, The Ting Tings have various lovely ringtones to them.

I likes.

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