Vote for "Panic Attack" on the Hype Machine - just follow this link, register (it's quick!) and click the heart. This is the 6 minute version of the Fred Falke remix of Florrie's "Panic Attack", available as a FREE mp3 download. The video was filmed and edited by Florrie and Toby Scott in the grounds of Xenomania HQ, Kent, in March 2010.
Once again Florrie unleashes her inner disco diva and even does a bit of scat singing. There are bells, whistles and a killer bassline, bringing funk, house and disco together. We love being spoiled with free downloads but we just can't wait to buy these tracks on shiny vinyl...
NME blogger/journalist Jaimie Hodgson has written a glowing review of Xenofest 2009, naming it «the bestestest festival in the history of everything» and saying that it «pretty much trouble-shot everything wrong with festivals»:
«Way too many people? Sorted, just invite about 40. Horrendously over-priced rat liver burgers? No fanks, what about free-for-all gastro-pub style BBQ? Yes please. Similarly priced piss-warm Carling? How about an endless stream of Moet and an eternal Pimms O’Clock? That’d do nicely. Shit-spurting WC fountains, nah, more like the kind of portaloos that with a welcome mat plonked outside you’d happily settle down in for a few months in between houses. Brain-burningly dreary bill-filling warm-up bands? Gimme a round of purest distilled chart-bound fist-pumping pop glory any day.»
Jaimie Hodgson picks Mini Viva as his favourite Xeno Fest performance:
«My favourite were Mini Viva, who’re kind of like a two-piece gym-treadmill adrenalized Sugarbabes, riding that unmistakable trademark Xeno splurge of pretty much every twist and turn music has taken in the whole history of everything ever crammed into each and every note. Very soon you’re not going to be able to step out your front door without being mule-kicked by their sparkly high-top Nike blazers. Their debut single is called ‘Left My Heart In Tokyo’ and if it doesn’t go top five then I’ll staple foreskin to the office copy of the N-Dubz album. The fact that they’re supporting the Saturdays on tour is pretty comedy, invoking thunder-stealing memories of Klaxons supporting Shitdisco, Fratellis with the Horrors on first, and so on. It’s a shame they don’t have the proper single version up on the Myspace yet, but worry not you’ll hear it soon. It’s gonna be bigger than air and, erm, love.»
He's also posted a few pictures of Xenomania's back garden. Stop, look and admire:
And of course that there's never too many pictures of the Xenomania ducks:
The inaugural Xenofest - a mini festival/garden party to showcase six of the acts signed to Xenomania Records - was held last Friday. The Xenomania mansion was open to receive journalists, PRs and record company people.
GQ describes the Xenofest as a "hit", adding that "pop music 2009/2010 is safe" in Brian Higgins' hands. Journalist Johnny Davis writes: «Xenomania's A&R girl had spent the last 18 months globe-trotting for talent - and their roster now included a throaty funk band, two Eighties-indebted indie-pop boys and a LA singer who'll give Pink a run for her money in the hair 'em, scare 'em stakes. Higgins himself stalked the garden in a zipped-up leather jacket, looking like a cross between Mark Fowler down the EastEnders market and an over-enthusiastic teenager.» Read the complete article ("Inside the hit factory") here.
Performing at the Xenofest were Mini Viva, Nightvisions, Pageboy, Vagabond, Alex Gardner and Jessie Malakouti. Read a few reviews:
-- MINI VIVA GQ: «two girls who share a Manchester flat together, whose future disco single "Left My Heart In Tokyo" sounded irresistible» This Must Be Pop: «I'd only heard the remixes that are on their MySpace before this, so I was hugely impressed with the proper songs. (...) Everyone was singing along when they played the studio version just after the performance, and most of us had only heard it once before.»
-- NITEVISIONS (aka The Electric City part 2) GQ: «euphoric electro-pop was so perfectly reminiscent of the Eighties someone joked they could have been Duran Duran's children - which, indeed, it turned out they were (the sons of Taylors John and Andy; Simon Le Bon's nephew was briefly on drums but was dismissed after being found to be "crap")» This Must Be Pop: «A male electro-pop band who were compared by audience members to Veto Silver and Phixx, but everyone agreed that Night Vision weren't as good as either of those bands. They easily got the least positive reaction of the night.»
-- VAGABOND GQ: «throaty funk band» This Must Be Pop: «I was surprised that they didn't do their current single, which is doing quite well and has grown on me quite a lot. They made up for it with good hair, and I can see them being one of the more successful of the Xenomania acts, but I could also see them being a big flop. Only time will tell!»
-- PAGEBOY GQ: «singer Brooke Gengras was discovered fronting all-female Led Zeppelin tribute act Lez Zeppelin in a New York bar and was just as brilliant a performer as that description would lead you to believe.» This Must Be Pop: «She's different to the other artists Xenomania has worked with, more of a singer-songwriter who might appeal to fans of Feist or Regina Spektor, but of course she's adding a Xenomania twist which will give her an edge over other similar acts.»
-- ALEX GARDNER This Must Be Pop: «A very young Scottish singer who seems like he could make a good popstar and is apparently high priority at the record label, but I didn't think any of his songs were especially good. I hope they'll find him something better to release, or he'll just be another in the track record of Scottish male popstars with disasterous careers. »
-- JESSIE MALAKOUTI GQ: «a LA singer who'll give Pink a run for her money in the hair 'em, scare 'em stakes». This Must Be Pop: «(...) the new stuff is excellent and apparently she's releasing a song through the Ministry of Sound label, which may be a good approach to take. She's gone from a Britney sound to a one-girl Girls Aloud, and I'm fine with that.» Popjustice: «Jessie is destined for quite big things - her tunes are pretty incredible and she's currently on tour with The Saturdays.» Jessie Malakouti is supporting The Saturdays on tour. Tonight is her first night.
GQ magazine writes that Brian Higgins is «notoriously exacting»: «you either work his way, or you're packed off on the train back to Victoria. Franz Ferdinand failed to see things his way for their recent album and went home with their tails between their legs (and a resulting album that dropped off the edge of the Top 40 pronto), and he'll neither confirm nor deny the rumours he once reduced Victoria Beckham to tears.»
«He expects his charges to put in long hours; something that doesn't always work with pop stars' schedules/egos and is the antithesis of producers like Pharrell Williams, who pride themselves in being able to knock out a Beenie Man b-side in an afternoon. "I can give Kylie a Top Five record in an afternoon," he once told me. "But what's the point in that?"»
«(...) Higgins' home is practically a stately home. It's certainly a house, a very big house, in the country. There's a swimming pool, ducks wandering past in the garden, rolling acres of greenery. Alice Liddell, on whom Lewis Carroll based Alice from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, used to live there. (Higgins recently sold the Bentley, but that just left more room for the fleet of private reg cars on the gravel drive.)»
-- she is the daughter of a former director of royal jewellers Asprey; -- she is married; -- her sister Rebecca is an opera singer; -- back when she was a dancer she was spotted by Dannii Minogue at a dance studio. Then she was in the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest as a backing dancer for Gina G; -- after she stopped dancing, she went into TV presenting and then met Brian Higgins; -- when Radio 1 saw her photos (as Moonbaby), in a jacuzzi with a bottle of champagne, they said: "Oh, she's some dolly bird, she hasn't written the stuff"; -- "Call The Shots" was written in Hôtel Costes in Paris and the Mondrian in LA; -- Miranda says that Girls Aloud are Xenomania's muses: "We've covered practically every genre. I think they've had a musical education through us"; -- the "Xenomania ducks" are mallards. A few months ago there were only two: Edmund and Josephine. They have since multiplied.
«Back working with Xenomania this week after a summer break. Had an interesting week: we wrote a new song over the backing-track of a song we weren't totally happy with and we really like it now. The album should be finished by the end of October. Meanwhile the Xenomania ducks seem to be breeding!»
The Pet Shop Boys have been very busy at Xenomania headquarters working on their new album and also photographing animals. Here's a picture of some ducks, posted by Neil Tennant on Pet Shop Boys' official web site:
Xenomania is a songwriting and production house based in Kent, England. It was founded by songwriter and producer Brian Higgins.
Since 1996, Xenomania have written, produced and remixed tracks for a string of successful artists including Girls Aloud, Pet Shop Boys, Sugababes, Dannii and Kylie Minogue, Saint Etienne, Cher, Gabriella Cilmi and many others.
