i’ve spent the evening obsessing over the music of the irrepressibles, trying to wrap my head around how this beautiful band has never crossed my path before. though their library is small—just an EP from 2008 and last year’s LP release, mirror mirror—i’ve never heard them referenced, interviewed, remixed, etc. a friend passed on a breathtaking video, and in a brief moment of baader-meinhof phenomena, i actually realized that i had tagged “in this shirt” with my shazam app several weeks ago.

i also got into a brief conversation with a fellow DJ about This Movement of music—which as far as i can tell remains unnamed as a genre, formally anyway—which is so heavily inspired by classical, by theatre, by glam rock. i was struggling to try and locate other bands that had this sort of sound before Now, and save a few 4AD artists (dead can dance comes to mind), this arena has been widely untouched after siouxsie, early-era cure, and so forth; i think of scott walker and bryan ferry/roxy music as forerunners to this Movement. but currently, we have antony hegarty, patrick wolf, wild beasts, coco rosie, even maybe even arcade fire (neon bible, primarily), creating beautiful, complex work. modern culture, now more than ever, is a gumbo of The Old and The New; the complexity of that dichotomy is well explored in music with this much depth.

so, a question for the music-amorous: why now?

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at any rate, whatever “this” sound or movement is, and why it is happening at this juncture in time, there is no doubt in my mind that it needs to exist.

what i love about the irrepressibles is the complexity: the elements of high theatre and fashion, of (queer) visibility. the orchestral large sound, the undeniably modern music elements. their shows are performances in the tradition of chamber music with a hint of cabaret, of chanson, of performance art (who doesn’t see a little bit of cremaster in all of this?). case in point: a ten-piece classically trained “performance orchestra” who perform with any variety of costume and make-up, even balloons, LED lights, fans and mirrors. the LP and EP both feature “in this shirt” (a haunting funeral-love-song-ending-credits piece that has even been remixed by royksopp) and “splish! splash! sploo!” (the closest to a roxy music tribute track one could wish for). but the albums as individual pieces are both solid, complex and varied in the right measure. in 24 hours, i have taken what started out as a cinephile’s curiosity with a artful (and sexy) music video into the uncharted and irreversible terrain of obsession. and there’s no turning back.

and as always, thank you england. we just don’t make ‘em like you do.

xo

dj rhienna