Chromeo - 'Fancy Footwork' (Backyard) Released 30/07/07

A quick look at the sleeve for Quebecois retro-electro duo Chromeo’s second album Fancy Footwork explains a lot. Written and produced by the pair (Dave-1 and Pee Thug, to their fans) in Montreal and New York, it was mixed in Paris by Philippe Zdar (who makes booty shaking, tongue-in-cheek electro, and has worked with Etienne de Crecy and Cassius, among others) and mastered in London. Executive producer? Tiga. The albums sound is true to this trajectory: oodles of sleazy NYC funk, disco, hip hop and electric boogaloo, a helping of camp Euro electronica, and a good pinch of UK synthpop. The duo even admit to influences like Phil Collins and unspeakable all girl band Klymaxx. "I don't care how people perceive us" says Dave-1 "the main thing about Chromeo is that you have fun to it and realize that it comes from a good place."

On these terms, 'Fancy Footwork' is a winner. It is a synth-by-synth homage to the 80’s – where electro outfits like Digitalism and Justice plunder samples to add flavour, Chromeo basically throw in every ingredient in the recipe book. The excellent ‘Tenderoni’ is shift and shake boogie driven by a cheeky guitar hook, funk bass line, and sleazoid vocal that you just have to tap your foot to. If you think title track ‘Fancy Footwork’ sounds like something you might hear at a step aerobics class, you might be right, but listen again – it has a camp humour melded with sincerity that suggests Chromeo have thoroughly digested their Prince.

'Bonafied Lovin’ is more of the same – high synths and bleeps, and here and throughout, flashes of melancholy electronic melody. But the prevailing mood is all for laughs, and by the time we get to ‘Momma’s Boy’, it all starts to get a bit silly. ‘Boy, you got it so wrong/When you look into her eyes and all you really see is your mom’. Compelling modern rendering of the Oedipus legend it ain’t, but amusing it certainly is – and the camp, disco fun of this album is both its strength and weakness.

Yes, it is fun – and if you like funksters Cameo, ‘Darling Niki’-era Prince, or French housers Cassius, then you’ll love this – but later in the album you begin to struggle to differentiate tracks. ‘Haven’t we already heard this?’ asked Gigiwse's flatmate, as we listened to the album for the first time. Well, yes, we have – as has anyone who’s heard any quantity of 80’s music. By their own admission, Chromeo are neither original nor very cool, but they are 100% good larks.