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at a glance...
Hometown:
Leeds/London, England
First Recordings: 1995
Personnel:
Dan Kahuna, Jon Kahuna, Jon Collyer - production
Hafdis Huld, Gruff Rhys, Eileen Rose, Betty Butterfly-Barbido - vocals
Simon Jones, Seggs - bass
In the Family :
Gus Gus, The Verve, Super Furry Animals, The Chemical Brothers, Eileen Rose
Notes:
Daniel Ormondroyd and Jon Nowell were young ravers lucky enough to be in the north of England during the height of Acid House; six years later, they were grizzled club vets lucky enough to be finding their feet in London when the Heavenly Social wiped the Capitol's clubbing slate clean. Sufficiently inspired, they started their own night in 1994 called The Big Kahuna Burger Company, and within a year it coalesced into one of those special moments: a weekly underground gathering in an inappropriate venue that saw minor celebs, rockers, disheveled rave warriors, and beautiful people swing from the rafters to a mash-up of hip-hop, techno, rock, soul, and the emerging noise of big beat. Just managing to stay ahead of that genre's precipitous decline, Dan and Jon shifted gears and opened Headstart, an acid and electro den housed at London's notorious Turnmills, and began putting a bit more thought into their remixing/songwriting/production alias, FC Kahuna. "Mindset to Cycle" hinted at a suddenly sophisticated understanding of darkened dancefloors, but little suggested the brilliance that was to come on Machine Says Yes.
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FC Kahuna
Machine Says Yes
City Rockers, Released 2002
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You'd have been forgiven for giving up on the dance music long player. There was a time when a classic debut seemed to come out of nowhere each year and gave credence to the idea that electronic dance music could produce more than the thrill of the 12-inch. Exit Planet Dust, Leftism, Homework, Remedy ... each claimed a place among the decade's most cherished albuims, and as each artist (minus the Chems) left a measure of unfulfilled promise, the next emerged to offer new hope.
Since Basement Jaxx's debut, however, the well has been a little dry. There have been some genuinely exciting happenings in dance music (2-step's brazen rumble comes to mind), and a handful of excellent albums (Kittenz and Thee Glitz and Since I Left You topping the list), but no more landmark debuts blindsiding us on the dancefloor. Enter FC Kahuna.
If, 18 minutes into this album, you are not ready to proclaim these two London-via-Leeds hedonists the most exciting thing in dance music, you need your feet examined. "Fear of Guitars" (voiced by Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys) is an exquisite 5-minute ambient wind-up punctured by the acidic disco pogo of "Glitterball", this album's statement of dancefloor intent. This is a monster tune that fulfills all the promises of dance music: it's funky, it's alien, and it's loud as fuck.
And it gets blown right out of the water by what comes next. "Machine Says Yes" has Choon of the Year locked down, sizzling along on a six-foot-thick synth line, a lovely chord sequence, and a heavenly vocal from Gus Gus' Hafdis Huld. But what really kills are the dynamics, the way the Kahunas suck the song through multiple dancefloor-detonating cycles without ever resorting to clichéd wind-ups and drumrolls. Anyone who thinks these dance types can't write proper songs needs to cock an ear.
Where to go from there? They can only hope to maintain. "Growler" and "Nothing Is Wrong" do just that, pushing their fusion of house and electro/techno out on the dancefloor, keeping the acid quotient high, and only occasionally letting things get too noisy. "Bleep Freak" is a brilliant, all-too-short aside, beefing up tongue-in-cheek retro with a thoroughly modern stop-start rhythm. "Hayling" slows things down for Huld's second guest spot, and its beautiful mechanized melodics more than compensate for messy, rockist drums.
Then comes 2000 single "Mindset to Cycle," the only thing the Kahunas ever did to suggest an album like this might be on the way. It lacks the melodic suckerpunch of the best songs here, but its sinister lurches and endlessly unraveling structure were always an indication of Dan and Jon's desire to capture the dynamics of the dancefloor in songs, rather than just looped-up tracks.
In the end, it's this understanding that makes Machine Says Yes so special. This is a sound inspired by sweaty basement dancefloors, dangerously late nights, noises and grooves that come out of nowhere to change your life. It's the sound of musicians finding their form and stepping up to take their turn, buzzing off the moment. Like all great buzzes, it's gone before you know it -- the retro-electro "Microcuts" feeds into comedown blues "North Pole Transmission," and it's over. But put the needle back to side one and the feeling starts to build again. A magical debut album, and the best reason in ages to believe that the future is in good hands. What more could you want?
If you like FC Kahuna, check out:
Daft Punk Homework
Renegade Soundwave RSW In Dub
The Chemical Brothers Come With Us
-- Jesse Fahnestock
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