#1
First released on Munich's fashionable International Deejay Gigolos label back in 2001, Fischerspooner's debut album#1was an immediate underground sensation. The creation of two New York fashion queens, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner, it swiftly became the defining example of what clued-up onlookers began to know as electroclash--a brand of synthetic punk music using not guitars and drums, but the traditional tools of the 80s musician: synthesiser, vocoder, sampled handclaps, sequenced bass. Feted in the style press, Fischerspooner became immediate cult superstars--and at the beginning of 2002, signed to Ministry Of Sound for a hefty sum. "Emerge" is the record's defining moment: a seismic explosion of bass-powered synth-flurries accompanied by a naggingbon vivantmantra--"Looks good / Feels good / Sounds good"--it's up there withDonna Summer's "I Feel Love" andNew Order's "Blue Monday" in the canon of all-time dancefloor classics. And luckily, the rest of the record is almost as good. "F***er" sounds like a fuel-injectedKraftwerk, all high-speed technoid blips and orgasmic vocoder moans, while "Turn On" finds Fischerspooner crafting their answer to a straightforward pop song--albeit, one that vogues more thanMadonna, and preens more thanPrince. It's a fantastic, accomplished debut.--Louis Pattison