New Connections: The Whip

The Whip are on to a good thing. Sounding like a rockier Daft Punk, a Mancunian The Faint and a far less pretentious Fischerspooner, they’ve made dirty electro music innovative and current and given it an indie twist. No need for glow sticks here, just damn good music to dance to. The timing seems to be in the stars for them too. What with the neon wave of bands descending on our young scenesters, in the form of Klaxons, recent touring buddies Hadouken!, Late of the Pier and their tips for the top Does It Offend You, Yeah? Although there are easy comparisons to be made with this scene of now, they’re separate from the fad and will (fingers crossed) be here far longer than some of their neon counterparts.

They are not content with already being electronic heroes in their own right either, as half of them ( in the guise of singer and guitarist Bruce Carter, and synth and computer master Danny Saville,) come from the oh so close Nylon Pylon group of old. Their new Manchester incarnation is going down a storm on a near constant two year touring schedule. This never-ending gigging means that sound checks tend to be the only time to rehearse new material.  And it’s not just the UK either that’s witnessing the birth of a superstar band in the making. When the current tour finishes next week, they are straight off to France, Japan, Amsterdam and glamorous Skegness. And if drunken promises to said journalist can be negotiated upon further, then The Whip are set to rock the unlikeliest of all places… Bognor Regis!

Where Nylon Pylon picked up the torch, The Whip are running with it much further. The two newest members, drummer and female presence Lil Phee, and bassist and Chilean wine lover Nathan Sudders, have at one time been “erotically linked”, (Bruce’s words, not theirs,) but put this romance behind them after the band’s first rehearsal, and are now more like a brother and sister team. Instead they concentrate on making great music, which is what they do best. What they all do best. Past singles ‘Divebomb’ and ‘Muzzle No. 1’ showcase their talent and are making the wait for the debut album all the more frustrating. If like us, March can’t come around quick enough, then new offering ‘Sister Siam’ is going to be available from today as a limited release.  And crowd pleaser and absolute stonking track 'Trash' will be a future single, and in a sane world will be the tune that propels them into the national consciousness. 

The as yet unnamed debut LP has been worked on by legendary Jim Abbiss of Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian fame. The band enjoyed working with the great producer. Bassist Nathan says, “He pushed all of us into doing things that we wouldn’t otherwise do, and got us involved in other ways.” Danny explains further, “We’ve lived with some of these songs for so long that you can get a bit blinkered to them, and he made us think more openly, instead of doing it that way which is an obvious route for it and what we’ve been doing for ages, why don’t you think of it differently.”  Experiments also occurred on the new offering, as Bruce notes; “We started a sub group which we used on three or four songs, called Connections. There’s a glockenspiel, Ray Davies’s organ (they recorded in his studio), a piano, and another little organ, which we’re including in the background on the album.”