.jpg)
Photo:
Intimate bedfellows rather than occasional fuck buddies, fashion and music are inextricably linked, mutually self-forgiving of seasonal faux pas and self-celebratory when a zeitgeist is successfully captured.
For the eponymous record label of French fashion house Kitsune, electronic music will always be, pardon my French, le nouveau noir, their autumn / winter 2009 collection appropriately referred to as the Chic and Nice issue. With their eighth compilation providing a Polaroid of modern pop and with no allowances made for a recession influenced vogue of make do and mend, Kitsune’s stylistic fusion of intelligent dance music reaffirms the genres often over cited and over looked pedigree.
First to sashay down the catwalk are French Horn Rebellion with ‘Up All Night’ and all the basics needed to start a lazy weekend before New York’s coolest four-piece The Drums illustrate their guitar wielding swagger with the brilliant but almost misplaced ‘Let’s Go Surfing’. From here on in it’s a dazed and confused joyride of bedroom crafted blips, clubland beats and lip licking intricacies, the deep groove and twisted infantile vocals of Siriusmo’s ‘High Together’ making the idea of double dropping a very bad one.
Embarked upon by a global network of friends and label-mates old and new the Kitsune journey is one of accumulative intensity. ‘Dance Til Dawn’ by Heartsrevolution and ‘Junocide’ courtesy of Logo providing a flicker of UV light at the end of a very long tunnel, before Moulinex’s remix of Two Door Cinema Club’s ‘I Can Talk’ adds an impressive slice of deep, dark and funky disco to the fierce guitar jangle of the original.
At times draining and all consuming, losing your mind to a mapping of electronic personalities is just a slip on the tightrope away, but retaining your sanity is made possible through Alex Kapranos’ remix of Chew Lips’ ‘Salt Air’, Delphic’s comedown friendly ‘This Memory’ and Parallels’ ‘Find The Fire’.
Fashion and music are inextricably linked but the relationship that Kitsune have nurtured between the two is, despite being consistently on the money and largely ahead of the game, more self-effacing than self-celebratory a trait that further underlines the Chic and Nice issues appeal.
