Posted: Saturday 26th January 2008

By Pritesh Peshavaria

In these times of wild abandon, carousers and merrymakers nationwide continually venture in pursuit of a higher clubbing experience, such demands and expectations resting heavy upon the valiant shoulders of all purveyors of gratification which increase exponentially with the passing of every year to spare us from mediocrity, ultimately setting a seal upon our annals of nostalgic rapture.

Reigning supreme for the second year running with its vibrant, variegated melange of action and interaction whilst approbating a new dimension to the clubbing experience was the Smirnoff Electric Cabaret where we remained exalted at Camden’s illustrious Koko club on the 22nd of November 2007.

Picture if you will the opening of an old, antiquated trinket box, there before you a myriad of loveliness sparkle and dazzle so enticingly, yet every so often succumbing to the distinctive charms of but one individual gem, such was the splendour of the Smirnoff Electric Cabaret.

One gem in particular were darlings of the Parisian underground scene Fancy with whom I had the great pleasure of acquainting myself before their biggest and most anticipated UK performance to date.

Banding whilst at school in Montreuil, a middle class suburb of southern Paris were the larger than life lead singer with a larger then life Afro Jessie Chaton and the seductively alluring guitarist, Mom. It was a year later at a post gig party jam session when the darkly smouldering Rae Mone who, so captivated by the bands potency renounced the guitar to cement the line-up as bassist. ‘We were born to be cool’ vaunts Jessie in provincial brogue, sitting poised in an Iron Maiden T-shirt as he recounts the heavy Acid Jazz and Funk influence at the inception of Fancy, ‘but I wanted something more rock at a certain point in the history of the band, Rae and Mom come from rock as well so it wasn’t a difficult change’.

And so the modish elecrto-funk-rock infusion burgeoned to much acclaim through the streets of Paris in keeping with an increasingly flamboyant mein complimenting Jessie’s distinctly androgynous vocal piquancy, an attribute he likens to Rob Halford from Judas Priest or Vince Neil from Motley Crue. Touring continued with the likes of TV on the Radio, Peaches, 2 Many DJ’s and the illustrious MC5 yet it was a full three years later at the 2006 Eurockenees festival when a ray of light in the form of Daft Punk’s manager shone upon Fancy, inviting them and live drummer Antoine to open for Daft Punk and Justice at Irelands Budrising Festival, signalling the moment when the band knew they’d finally arrived.

‘We are a pretty slow band’ laughs Jessie, ‘we take our time to compose a song but we have very high standards. Some record labels didn’t want to take a risk with us’.

No, the rise of Fancy wasn’t without it’s trials as the plight of the maverick virtuoso seldom is, ‘Maybe because we haven’t got the right faces to play rock and roll’ ponders Rae, ‘sometimes it was our origin, some people used to say it was a strange casting for a group, An Arabian, Moroccan, Chilean Latino-American, Polish. It seemed very strange for them. Sometimes they were not used to Jessie’s very high pitch, it was very difficult for them to accept all these chaotic things’.

Ever the optimist Jessie cordially acknowledges the great risk record companies take when signing bands, ‘I can understand this way of thinking but it’s a shame for us’.

Distinguishing, though alas at time alienating them further from their contemporaries were their ethical aesthetics, dispensing with all manner of vice bar the carnal as Jessie elucidates, ‘A lot of rock bands are very impressed about that. Sometimes they say we are disrespecting rock and roll but for us it’s something natural, we don’t think about it’. It becomes strikingly apparent that the only way Fancy wish to emulate luminaries such as James Hetfield (Metallica) or Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) is to one day look back over an eminent twenty year history.

As for whether their delectable ambiguity extends to the carnal, well, they want to keep us guessing, ‘We like and we are, it’s a secret, we want to keep the mystery’ quips Jessie with a cheeky glint in his eye, though it does go some way to explaining why they settled upon the band name of Fancy, ‘we felt it was made for us, we fancy people, people fancy us’.

The millennium has thus far been an exciting age of musical alchemy, how-ever Jessie isn’t entirely convinced, ‘It (the music scene) isn’t stale but there’s nothing very exciting for us. (There are) some very good bands with the revival of rock and electro music but there are no new Rolling Stones, The Police or Queen’. Rae continues, ‘we love a period of time between the 60’s and 80’s when rock and roll was great, the Golden Age’, further citing Diana Ross, Joe Jackson, Madonna and Kate Bush as some of the icons of their time.

One track they do hold in high esteem is the current Justice single D.A.N.C.E. co-penned by the fair hand of Jessie himself (of which there is a Fancy version in the offing), a collaboration which followed the wry Bitch’ which Jessie co-wrote with French electro-rock savants Rinocerose on their 2005 album Schizophonia.

Exciting them infinitely more is their debut album Kings of the Worlds, so named because the band want to seize the attention of all the worlds (of which they are certain there are numerous), for years to come.

They do bumptiously concede that the title may be a tad dated but only on account of having since advanced to Kings of the Universe.

Describing the album as ‘Catchy and made for you’, Rae continues, ‘because some came from the rock and roll world and some from the funk world we want to please everyone. Our music is a mix of all kinds which is why we are Kings of the Worlds, of the Universes’.

Following the release of debut single proper Seventeen, Fancy are set to unleash double A-side ‘What’s your name again/ Inside of you’ on School Boy Error Records which may see the felicitous inclusion of the Busy P Remix.

And thus, a young mans fancy turned to the Streets of Camden where, a solitary crimson feather atop the bosom of a night scented breeze heralded the commencement of the sold out Smirnoff Electric Cabaret.

The heady thrum milling within the great opulent hall lay roused by a cutting edge electronica DJ set permeating the airwaves beneath which a colossal heavenly Glitterball shimmered benevolently when, from seemingly out of nowhere appeared a jocular, spoof break-dancing combo followed by two Russian Snow Princesses atop stilts, enchanting as they pirouetted daintily betwixt the bespoke, resplendent in seraphic finery. Within moments our gazes were diverted skyward as Empress Stah, clad in neo-burlesque and suspended under a majestic chandelier, tantalized with erotically charged aerial acrobatics to the misty sounds of Vienna and Love me tender whilst savagely plucking scarlet rose petals with her teeth before showering them over a baited audience.

Whilst still rubbing the awe from our eyes our effusive, erstwhile compere, the top n tailed Jimbo instantaneously established a rapport, inciting much hearty audience participation through-out the night as he covertly made his presence known from unexpected, arbitrary stand points.

As the night unravelled we were delighted by a kaleidoscopic host of hand picked entertainment; an unholy union between contortionist and tennis racket, an extraordinary nymphet with flashing hoola-hoop cunning, Johann Lipowitz’s audacious mine to Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn, magicians both charismatic and street based, the Harry Potter of beat boxing and Bjork collaborator Shlomo, a deliciously bawdy troupe of Can Can dancers and, possibly the most beguiling of all soliciting gasps of incredulity through-out the auditorium, renowned performance speed painter John Hicks with a sensational homage to Freddy Mercury.

The gaiety extended beyond the stage where random chests brimming with Crimson feather boas, mesh gloves, caps and Top Hats beckoned our adornment as by Jove, we too become Cabaret. Emboldened by our frippery we made our merry way through the labyrinthine maze of rooms and passageways encountering all manner of style and grace including ornate make-over’s, photographers and a stately chap in Russian military attire bestowing Golden threads which afforded entry to the clandestine Boudoir Bar, wherein exhibited Matroyska Dolls, Rasputin masks and Faberge Eggs, tempered by gentle, rustic Slavic sounds.

Even the bars aggrandized the interactive experience inviting revellers to choose a drink by scent using specially designed ‘snifters’ (hand-blown glass nosing tubes), for a new take on cocktail tasting along with many signature Smirnoff cocktails including copper cups of the nectareous Smirnoff Mule and flutes of the zesty Czar Bellini. The night was punctuated by bands starting with Fancy who delivered a stomper of a set, Jessie ardently commanding the audience equally Mick Jagger as he was Freddy Mercury; Rae Mon, Mom and Antoine but things of exquisite beauty, concluding with a riotous cover of The Pointer Sisters I’m So Excited.

Grammy award winning triumphs of Youtube OKGo held a legion of fans enraptured for a full set how-ever, it was Belgium’s Goose who stole the show in the early hours as the heavens ruptured discharging a glorious deluge of filthy electro-sleaze-rock arousing the masses into a positively heaving fervour, sending us reeling into the hands of electro mix master visionary, Radio 1’s Kissy Sell Out who, along with two giant red bouncing balls and a pair of onstage freestyle dancers kept us riding that wave of euphoria well over into the other-side.

Every minute detail of the Smirnoff Electric Cabaret had been meticulously considered, culminating in what can only be described as both a celebration of the senses and a monumental success leaving us with but one question; will we ever be sated by club culture again?

I doubt it very much for we have been well and truly spoilt and eagerly await the next time Smirnoff Electric Cabaret comes to town.