THE UK REVIEW Kellies – Las Kellies (Fire)
by Tamsin Chapman
If you’re a regular Collapse Board reader, you don’t need me to tell you that this LP is fantastic. Here are some clues.
You already know this is bilingual brat bop par excellence. Clipped vocals, barbed lyrics, post-punk playground chants. Kellies make it sound as effortless as a cat’s meow but it takes great discipline to be this stripped down. And despite the surface minimalism, gurgling around beneath the grooves are slices of disco twitch, rumbles of dub, surf instrumental throb and a bit of extra -haughty rap flow. They love Lungleg as much as Frank Chickens, and Kleenex are there to mop their brow. But most obviously these girls make you want to move. Therefore, there’s only one way to review this album and that’s through the medium of dance. [We want video! – Ed] Here goes:
‘Prince In Blue’ . Sinuous start. Building into a sort of jerky, thrusty fists-out routine. Air cymbals. Ooh and a little bit of shaky leg action.
‘Keep The Horse’ . Speeding up now and I’m mouthing along to the talky bits. I wish I had a pair of A Certain Ratio-style lederhosen. Almost.
‘Bling Bling’. Jogging on the spot and hands in the air. Here comes a ringy-bell part, I’ll try a little rump-shake. I usually come unstuck with this move. Still there’s no one here to see me – yeeeaahh!
‘Adwenture’ . Slow, sexy, burlesque bassy rumble which demands a prop. I wield a pink polka dot parasol to the clink of the cowbell.
‘Erase You’ . Yay, a neat little ESG cover. Now I’m flailing wildly and singing along, “PUMP IT UP GIRLS!”
(Also I invent a new move, a sort of march-hop which I do into the kitchen and back for a glass of water.)
‘Bife Dos’. My top lip is sweating. Slow down to a sort of forward and backwards strut.
‘Perro Rompebolas’ . This one’s my favourite. Basically I just run backwards and forwards as fast as I can with my top off.
‘Scotch Whisky’. Another stomper. Two words: Elaine Benes.
‘Hit It Off’ . Skipping. It works best with a gigantic shit-eating grin.
‘Dance The Seance’ . Still with the grin and harmonising with the “ooh woohs” . Even my cat joins in on this one. Or he may just a bit scared.
‘Cous Cous’. Right, all my clothes are off for this one. Except for a top hat and a surly snarl. Oops, got a bit over-enthusiastic and threw the hat up against my badly sound-proofed ceiling. I hear my neighbour stirring. But if you can’t dance naked but for a top hat to an awesome Argentinian post-punk girl trio in your own living room, where the hell can you do it?
‘Totsunootoshigo’ . A jangly one with a touch of hi-life waterfall guitar. Time to wind down and meander a little.
‘Um Dia No Brasil’ . Robot walk. I pretend I’m Gort in The Day The Earth Stood Still . I make swishing sound effects.
‘Suffisant’. The poppiest one to finish off with. In its honour I devise a new dance routine which I name the Glist. It combines twisting with a glam-rock stomp, hands on hips then hands in the air, hands on hips then hands in the air. Shake your bits until they drip. That’s it, you’ve got it! Glist and Pout.
That was ace! Can I review all albums like this in future please, Collapse Board?
