Digitalism

If Franz Ferdinand make rock music that girls could dance to, Digitalism make electronic music that everyone can rock out to. For the past two years, they have been the go-to men for indie remixes, having reworked Tom Vek, The Cure, The White Stripes, The Klaxons, Cut Copy and The Futureheads, to devastating effect.

Now it is their turn to deliver their full length entitled Idealism on June 19 that displays their rock and electronic influence. The new electro-punk pioneers have arrived. Idealism is loose, heavily distorted, rough grooves and blankly delivered lyrics that have as much in common with The Stooges as it does with the Ministry of Sound.

Last October they were the hightlight of the NME cover-mounted Dancefloor Distortion CD, alongside The Gossip and The Mystery Jets. This summer, you’re as likely to find them appearing live on the festival circuit as playing the clubs. At time of writing, Erol Alkan, Daft Punk, The Presets and fellow dance/rock chisellers, Boyz Noize, all sit in their MySpace top eight. As Sean McClusky, the legendary London rock club promoter, who booked the duo recently, puts it “Digitalism are as popular with indie kids as electro or techno clubbers.”

Their loose, heavily distorted, rough grooves and blankly delivered lyrics have as much in common with The Stooges as they have with the Ministry of Sound.

Given all this international, rock ‘n’ roll attention, Digitalism haven’t much time for their hometown, Hamburg. “Mentally, it’s a little bit cold” sighs Ismail "Isi" Tuefekci, the tall, garrulous DJ and music producer.

“It’s a pretty rich city,” agrees Jens Moelle, the shorter, fairer, more taciturn half the duo; “there a lots of boring buildings.”

Germany’s second largest city, known for its thriving harbor and high standards of living, has held little influence over the popular music scene, since the Beatles' Reeperbahn residencies in 1960. Still, it was here that Digitalism formed.

Isi, the German born son of Turkish immigrants, met Jens, the child of a liberal Hamburg family, at the city’s Underground Solution record store. Moelle was the first to find employment there towards the end of the 1990s. When he took leave from the shop to devote more time to his school work, Isi filled. Later Jens returned, and the pair worked alongside each other: Jens in the shop, and Isi at the attendant record distribution business. They soon bonded over their shared love of dance and rock records.

When the store’s owner Ollie Grabowski, began casting around for a couple of fresh, young DJs to play at a party, he suggested that Isi and Jens team up. “We were of the same generation,” explains Isi, “we liked the same records, so we were put in one room together.”

Ever the innovators, the boys bought an adaptor for their first DJing gig, allowing them to plug two sets of headphones into one socket. “So you could hear the same thing,” explains Isi.

“You never drop out of the groove,” Jens confirms.

As the duo’s DJing reputation took off, so the harder the pair worked to find obscure, unheard records to animate their crowds. In 2001, the price of CD writers dropped sufficiently to allow the boys to burn their own records. “We stared with some edits,” says Jens, “just for our DJ sets.”

The first was a version of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army. This eventually found its way onto vinyl and sold well, marking Digitalism out as dance producers who could cross over into the rock camp. Its success also prompted the boys to put out another release. On their second record, they also included an original composition. The jagged, makeshift track, with its scrappy vocal hook (‘I Have An Idea That You Are Here, I Have The Idea That You Were Near’), called Idealistic, was as close in spirit that of The Buzzcocks or PiL, as it was to conventional house and techno releases. The record was re-pressed, allowing everyone from Errol Alkan to Pete Tong to pick up a copy, yet it was Gildas Loaec from the ultra-cool Kitsuné in Paris who eventually contacted the duo with a serious label deal. “I knew the record had done well,” says Isi, “I was distributing it, after all. Yet I was really happy to get the call from Gildas. We were the first artist signing to Kitsune.”

Digitalism initial release on the French label remains their best known: "Zdarlight". The boys chose this peculiar spelling to distinguish the record from other ‘Starlight’ titled tunes by everyone from Muse to Model 500. They shouldn’t have worried. The heavy dance tune, with its acidic undercarriage, lilting guitar line and stratospheric climax, is distinctive enough. It received strong support in 2005 from Soulwax, Tiga, Seb Fontaine, Tommie Sunshine, Tiefschwarz and The Glimmers, and remains a reliable club staple to this day.