Findo Gask – One Eight Zero
Release date: 8th December 2008 (Angular Recordings)
Download:
One Eight Zero (Ripped Speakers Remix).mp3
One Eight Zero is heady pop sparkle in unexpected shapes, exactly the kind of off-kilter perfection you might dream up if you were a band that loved the Beach Boys, Cornelius, the Associates, Squarepusher and music from computer games (for the record, Findo Gask love We Love Katamari). Jigsaw drapes sublime choral harmonies amongst skittering drums and a post-rave synth breakdown, somehow walking a perfectly judged line between frenzy and elegance, while Nubo carries echoes of Kraftwerk and New Order, but also throws heart-stoppingly delicate vocal swoops and mournful, almost mariachi-like trumpets into the mix. Complete with deliciously filthy bass, the band’s own ‘Ripped Speaker’ remix of One Eight Zero is a head-spinning exercise in a kind of crazed, psychedelic dancehall.
It’s been a while since Findo Gask released their debut single, Va-Va-Va – hailed by the Sunday Times as “One of the year’s strangest and most sublime singles – a real discovery” and by Radio 2’s Radcliffe and Maconie as” staggeringly good… just an astonishing record” – nearly a year, in fact. But while taking their own sweet time painstakingly crafting giddy pop epiphanies, the perfectionist Glasgow quartet have also been honing their skills as remixers for, amongst others, the Long Blondes and Yoko Ono…
Va-Va-Va disco remix available exclusively for free from Angular
Gregory and Gerard have been in bands together since they met at St Andrew’s High School, Kirkcaldy, Fife. Gregory and Michael went to Fife Youth Orchestra together (all the band also have some classical training.) In 2005, an early incarnation of the band released a split seven inch with Errors (currently recording for Mogwai’s Rock Action label), produced by Gavin Thomson of local band Flying Matchstick Men.
The band spent a year practicing in Gerard’s bedroom above notorious local indie dive Nice n Sleazy’s, but it wasn’t until 2006 (when Flying Matchstick Men split up) that Gavin joined, bringing with him a wealth of electronic equipment, and everything was turned on its head. Gavin, other members of the band have observed, “likes technology in a slightly sexual way.”
Findo released their debut proper, a 12” for Oscarr, the label run by Glasgow’s Sunday night mash-up Optimo, last December, and have played with Franz Ferdinand, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Dirty Projectors.
