SONG OF THE DAY (#153)

'hanging on,' by marsheaux

greece! the acropolis! baklava! souvlaki! socrates! gyros! olives! plato! yanni! yanni's moustache! wait.... not so much with the yanni. or his moustache.

the latest in the long and excellent line of greek exports is marsheaux, the thessolonikian, electro-pop goddess duo blessing the world with their korgs, minimoogs, rolands, and snappy tunes. fact: they take the band's name from the combination of the first syllables of each of their first names: marianthi and sophie (and aren't they just lovely?). greece?! synthpop?! who knew!

they're just released their second album, 'peek a boo,' (though if you buy the import, you'll get their first album, 'ebay queen,' too. gotta love two-fers) on july 17 and recently supported OMD during their UK comeback tour. in fact, they draw pretty heavily on early OMD (think 'organization,' and 'omd,'), depeche mode ('speak and spell'), erasure, kreftwerk, human league, and gary numan, and latter-day bands like ladytron and saint etienne. but they remain distinctly their own band. part of this is due to the heavenly vocals and harmonies (and the fact they're significantly better looking then their male counterparts) and partly to the synths, which instead of sounding icy and detached, bring a lot of warmth to the songs. it was also smart move to avoid the incessant minor-key misery typical of the genre and just have fun. and fun they have. the songs are just supergreat, catchy and hummable. there's not a dud to be found on either album. solid stuff top to bottom. and if that weren't enough, they even pay homage to their heroes by covering the lightning seeds ('pure'), when in rome ('the promise') and new order ('regret'). even yanni would be impressed.

both albums are terrific and i highly recommend them. i've been listening to them nonstop the last coupla days. yeah, you might have to pay the steep import price, buy hey, no one ever said heavenly recordings like this would come cheap.

--> marsheaux: hanging on
--> marsheaux: regret (new order cover)

!m.