The London-based quartet features lead singer Vincent Neff, drummer and producer David Maclean, bassist Jimmy Dixon, and keyboard and synthesizer operator Tommy Grace. Fresh off the back of their European tour, Django Django have been promoting the release of their newest album Off Planet. The album features an ambitious 21 tracks which sees the band span across a wider range of instruments and influences than ever before.
The album’s opening track ‘Wishbone’ acts as a gateway into the sonic exploration that is to follow. It features trademark electronic beats and keyboard sonatas. This song is directly followed by an eruption of 90s-inspired breakbeat in the track ‘Complete Me’, featuring Self Esteem. The stylistic demarcation between the first two songs sets the trend for the rest of the album and indeed summarises Django Django’s ethos: thoughtful, creative chaos.
The album contains acid house songs of ‘Galaxy Mood’ featuring London Afro-raver Toya Delazy, as well as ‘No Time’, an upbeat garage-tinged dance-pop song, featuring Sault’s Jack Peñate. Amid this collaborative genius, the familiar sounds of Django Django’s folk-electronica seeps through in the form of minimalist keyboard patterns and psychedelic wooziness.
The musical ideology behind Django Django’s Off Planet seems to be a nod to The Music of the Spheres, an early philosophical theory that posits that the movements of the planets is driven by musical forms. Each section of the four-part album seems to represent its own cosmos, with its own unique voices and influences. These musical influences are just as vast as their curated galaxy, drawing on afro acid, krautrock, and bluesy pop, to name but a few. This celestial rumination sets the album up to high standards, on which Django Django deliver on all fronts.
While Django Django’s music operates in a similar sphere to the likes of Metronomy, Tame Impala, and Hot Chip, the band have not experienced the same commercial success. Throughout their decade of musical activity, they haven’t cultivated the same audience base experienced by their contemporaries. This is perhaps due to their stylistic oscillations that keep their music in the realms of the ineffable.
For Django Django, however, this seems to have been a blessing. It’s given them the freedom of creative exploration rarely afforded to pop bands circumscribed by established genres. Django Django unchained themselves from the restrictions of genre categorisation, allowing them to experiment with synthesised and organic instrumentation in unique and distinctive ways.
Django Django took their places on stage at New Century adorned in matching white shirts boldly printed with horse patterns. Along with daring fashion choices, the band brought to the stage convention-defying rhythms and intoxicating excitability that was absorbed by each and every audience member.
They kicked things off with ‘Somebody’s Reality’, an unreleased acoustic ballad, and a melodious ode to love and loss. It was a song whose bare simplicity acted as a blank canvas for the tracks to follow, as the proceeding anthems brought with them the addition of new instruments to the stage. From harmonicas to synths, maracas to tambourines, and bongos to steel drums, the band transported the audience across continents and epochs.
Off Planet serves as a reminder of the rarity of bands like Django Django. While their experimentalism borders on amorphousness, it is this shape-shifting and genre-blurring brilliance that enables them to channel their musical creativity to produce songs that are sincere and original. This fresh take on the creative process gives Django Django a longevity that will be enjoyed by all who are fortunate enough to discover their music.
