It's been nine years since Larry Tee, the man who coined the term "electroclash," put on the first Electroclash festival. Rather than looking at how that scene died, it's interesting to see how many of those festival headliners-- Fisherspooner, Peaches, Ladytron, Scissor Sisters-- survived. (Not to mention that nobody sniffs at later electro-pop bands like Hot Chip, Justice, Crystal Castles, CSS, etc.) Maybe the key for the the duo behind Fisherspooner (composer Warren Fischer and singer/performer Casey Spooner) is that they don't consider themselves "dance musicians" in the conventional sense. "I mean our music isn't really dance music," Fischer told Pitchfork's Tom Breihan in a recent interview. "I don't really know what genre it would lie in. I guess it's kind of like indie pop or pop music."
They always were, and still consider themselves, an art project first (notice he says "our music" rather than "we"). As they said, they get commissioned for dance pieces (the kind performed in concert halls), not for remixes. Their shows are built on spectacle rather than the charisma of any one of their players, including frontman Spooner. Unfortunately for a band that tries to turn glitter and polish into art, Entertainment is a lackluster performance. Here they almost become the indie pop group they claim they've always been, but the irony of their cries against capitalism and artifice ultimately fail without compelling songs to keep them afloat.
Entertainment begins promisingly. Lush opener "The Best Revenge" scans as old Fischerspooner sleaze for its first few seconds, but then the track shudders awake with broken keyboard notes and a dated but delightful horn line-- the kind where you hope someone yells "Blow, daddy!" But no one ever does. "At what cost? There is a price," warns Spooner. He lives by this admonishment throughout Entertainment (the title perhaps evoking that other anti-capitalist "dance" band, Gang of Four). The stance is funny (though understandable) coming from a band you'd always suspect was created exclusively for readers of BlackBook. Some of his warnings-- "Currency can only do so much" ("Money Can't Dance"), "What's real? What's fake" ("In a Modern World"), or "It's no one's fault but our own," from their slippery anti-war track "Infidels of the World Unite", ring insincere, an unfortunate side-effect of Spooner's deadened vocals.
Fischerspooner's bolder attempts at pop, like the flute-backed twee verse towards the end of "Money Can't Dance" and the more personal "Door Train Home", hint at something more interesting. The latter song is unusual here: though Spooner's still deadpan, his specificity and intimate lyrics make up for the rather broad strokes of sawtooth synth and whining guitar from his partner. But there are far too many tracks on Entertainment where both members are sleepwalking. "We Are Electric" comes off particularly half-hearted; Fischer cycles the song's tinny, repetitive synth pattern though different filters while Spooner intones the title line over and over. Both halves play like they were written for different songs with no thought given to how they'd get along.
For a group not making dance music, their danciest tracks are still their best. "To the Moon" coalesces in all the right ways: found audio detritus blends into a likable, warm synth melody and a layered, exultant beat. Slivers of violin and keyboards are inserted into all the best spots, and even Spooner finds an elementary vocal melody before backing out gracefully. It works in this context, for a group that seems all about context. Like, "Danse En France"'s textured, fractured pieces and spoken intro don't work until you know that the song was commissioned for a particular dance company, and is based on a hilarious story of casual sex via boneheaded Americanism. So Entertainment might be music for their performances, it might be for others' dance performances, but it's not for the dance floor. Those halves that don't quite fit? They're begging to be pulled apart and put back together by heavier hands.
