What do you do when your bandmates go off on solo quests? Get pissed? Do more drugs than a Colombian cartel can handle? Scratch your head? No, silly: you start yer own record label!!! So, ladies and gentlemen: please welcome Toast Hawaii, the new label formed by Mr.Andy Fletcher, of Depeche Mode fame.
Cue applause, and rightly so, as Toast Hawaii's first signing are uber-intriguing CLIENT: a bizarre, super-fem, machine-funk electronic duo, who are clearly from "oop north" judging by the wonderfully rounded accents, yet refuse to be ientified as anything other than 'Client A' and 'Client B'. They are mysterious, they are subversive, they are deviant and you get the feeling that if they enticed you home you could end up involved in all manner of nefarious practices.
So, do you wanna indulge? Well, yeah...bearing in mind that you could end up handcuffed to a four-poster, suffocating on satsumas. But it sounds like it'd be worth the risk. "Client" itself kicks us off, coming on like the iciest, futuristic escort agency anthem imaginable. "We aim to please, we never miss a trick," they deadpan, before signing off with the scary "Fuck off, don't touch me there." Ouch.
Much of what follows is sleazily catchy. Both the single "Rock And Roll Machine" and "Price Of Love" are poppy hi-energy efforts, akin to "Dare"-era Human League with low-rent Giorgio Moroder production and vocals like a catfight between Dusty Springfield and Alice Nutter.
Things get even more threatening with the barely-controlled rage of "Happy" ("I'm happy, she's happy, so why the fuck are you not happy?"), though that's nothing compared to the panting, provocative lust (just about) contained within "Diary of An 18 Year Old Boy" ("make me tremble, make me want you, you're so filthy aren't you baby"), which is anything but ambiguous.
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The sex drive takes awell-deserved post-coital sleep during the album's two intrumentals. "Civilian" is rather slight and throwaway, but "Leipzig" is chilly, evocative and brims with tantalising Eastern European atmosphere. It's possibly only designed as a link, but in reality is one of the standouts here.
The provocation never lets up for long, though. "Here And Now" might kiss off with the line: "I'll take my time, the future's bright", but it's musical setting is dark, diseased and desperate, while "Sugar Candy Kisses" - with its' growling Peter Hook-style bass - is every bit as empty and hopeless as prime-era Smiths, regardless of the lyrics' sexual prowling. There again, it's a romp compared to the tranquiliser-addiction hell of "Pills", which really plumbs new depths of horror.
"Client" is a frightening, fucked-up, downright unwholesome debut. Like The Human League's Joanne and Susanne leading you into the bowels of the red light district, Clients A and B are your voyeuristic dream/ nightmare come true. Resistance is advised, but ultimately useless. God help you, Fletch.
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