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Those of you who are well versed in the cult BBC2 show The Mighty Boosh will be aware of the Robots In Disguise. Not only were they guest stars on the show but Dee Plume dates every indie girls heartthrob Noel Fielding A.K.A Vince Noir, the Boosh’s resident Mod/ Goth. However little is known of Sue Denim and Dee Plume’s (probably not their real names) day job as Robots In Disguise. Together they craft fluorescent bubble gum pop mixed with dark brooding electro to create a fusion of sounds as at home on Top Of The Pops as it would be lining up alongside 'New Rave' visionaries Klaxons, Hot Chip et al.
Kicking off with the single ‘Turn It Up’ the Robots set their stall out from the beginning with a slow brooding track name checking the work of David Bowie, The Smiths and Peaches. This track in particular shows Plume and Denims knack of combing a killer tune to intelligent lyrics. ‘La Nuit’ follows and is a more upbeat affair with a summery groove and idiosyncratic vocals delivered in French to make us all feel a bit more sophisticated when really we are listening to the electro Girls Aloud.
‘The DJ’s Got A Gun’ is a bona fide floor filler about a DJ getting mightily pissed off with clubbers making requests, it is a hidden pop gem that that in a sane universe would be number one until 2010. Three tracks in and things are going swimmingly well, we are enjoying ourselves so much we could be tempted to tattoo RID on our foreheads, something has to go wrong, Ray Davies if you are reading look away now. Robots In Disguise’s cover of ‘You Really Got Me’ starts off sounding like Bodyrockers and gets worse, if it were an original RID song we would be more lenient but the fact it’s an all time classic makes the slaughtering all the more inappropriate, please girls leave The Kinks back catalogue alone.
Luckily things pick up again with ‘Girl’ which is basically the sound of Emeline Pankhurst taking a load of pills and going to an early 90’s rave, feminism never sounded so good. ‘She’s A Colour Scientist’ is the album highlight with a throbbing bassline and a de coda robotic vocal hook running throughout.
'Get Rid!' is not big or clever but it’s damn good fun. RID sound like every girl band would if they were raised on decent music as opposed to The Spice Girls and All Saints, its pop music all right, just not as we know it.
Minor criticisms would be that at 11 tracks long including 2 remixes it’s not a substantial amount of music especially as ‘Hot Gossip’ and ‘Voodoo’ are lacklustre by The Robots standards. Said remix’s however are fantastic. Both are by IAMX front man Chris Corner they take the tracks ‘DJ’s Got A Gun’ and ‘Hot Gossip’ down a dark alley way and corrupt them in unmentionable ways.
Don’t buy this album and expect it to change your life, it’s silly, futile pop-tastic fun. If you want a fun, exotic party album then 'Get Rid!' should be your first port of call.
