TEMPOSHARK - THE INVISIBLE LINE
PAPER AND GLUE
TRACKLISTING
Don't Mess With Me
Joy
Blame
It's Better To Have Loved
Not That Big
Knock Me Out
Crime
Battleships
Little White Lie
Invisible Ink (prelude)
Invisible Ink
Winter's Coming
Invisible Ink (reprise) - Hidden Track
Teaming up musicians Rob Diament and producer Luke Busby, Temposhark are an electro pop duo who have been working together for nearly four years now. Debut album THE INVISIBLE LINE was produced and recorded in London with guest collaborations and production duties from such names as Imogen Heap, Guy Sigsworth, Sean McGhee, Sophie Solomon and Youth.
THE INVISIBLE LINE is however a record that never really lives up to the quality that you'd expect from the names involved, a collection of songs that whilst pretty solid and decent, never manage to establish themselves as anything beyond the average.
Opener DON'T MESS WITH ME is a melodramatic starting point, John Barry-esque orchestral stirrings and stabs dancing around Rob Diament's middling vocals; it's this factor that proves a main focus of the problems with Temposhark, Diament's vocals whilst serviceable and decent enough, don't have that extra special spark needed to raise the songs to the next level. JOY is another average sounding slice of electro pop, Temposhark pitching a sound that's somewhere between Depeche Mode, The Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran. BLAME is a healthier sounding proposition though, the epic choruses lifting the song and lending proceedings a searching, epic pop edge.
Elsewhere here, songs like IT'S BETTER TO HAVE LOVED, KNOCK ME OUT and LITTLE WHITE LIE are further examples of Temposhark residing in more unappealing average sounding waters, the duo failing to excite, inspire or engage. The record's true stand out moment comes with NOT THAT BIG, Temposhark collaborating with Imogen Heap and delivering a song that feels so much more expansive and intriguing than anything else on offer here; Heap's distinctive vocals lend a more original edge to proceedings.
The dreary BATTLESHIPS represents a shift back to duller musical directions, Temposhark unfortunately coming across like a male version of Dido, something closing numbers INVISIBLE INK and WINTER'S COMING repeat.
THE INVISIBLE LINE is a record that never really manages to engage or excite, the odd moment hints at something special and the odd collaboration manages to reveal Temposhark's true potential, but on the whole THE INVISIBLE LINE is an album that is ultimately more miss than hit.
BIOGRAPHY
Remember the days when music had got about as criminally colourless as it's ever been? The charts had been colonised by identikit vanilla popstrels, alternativity was split between sloggers soaking up the Britpop hangover and a combination of wallflowers and wallpaperers, and dance music was lorded over by a tiring technoscenti and numerous forgotten pan-flashers that were almost asinine in their anonymity. This was the landscape that most of today's younger twentysomethings had to battle through, sadly. Lucky some of them took the opportunity to get buffing up their prick-kicking shoes then, eh?
For instance, there's singer Robert Diament, an engaging figure whose ostensible sweetness covers up a heart of darkest drama and ears that have flapped archly through the years to such giants as Kate Bush and Scritti Poliiti – anyone that dared to put the art into smart, essentially. And then, for another instance, there's avuncular bleep urchin Luke Busby, whose motto may well be "twiddle me this", and whose unending search for new noise has led him onto some mightily squirrelly floors and taught him that just because it's pop doesn't mean it can't also haemorrhage your stereo.
Both wasted no time in taking tentative steps along a particularly left-leaning musical yellow brick road, but, by the tried'n'tested random route of studying together in the capital, they soon developed in their own right as a match made in heaven. Or indeed in any other glamorous metropolitan nightspot you'd care to mention. And so they plotted and schemed. And wrote loads of songs about lowlifes and nightlife, and ones that would've bedded down nicely on New Order's 'Low-Life' and scared the bejeesus out of much of the Pet Shop Boys' 'Nightlife'. And thus was Temposhark born.
Fair to say they've been on something of a feeding frenzy since then too. 2006 has seen tracks circulating that have led to all kinds of discerning eyelids being batted at them. It's afforded them the opportunity to collaborate with celebrated chanteuse Imogen Heap (Frou Frou), Decca's violin star Sophie Solomon, legendary producers Guy Sigsworth (Madonna/Björk/Lamb), Sean McGhee (Robyn/Sugababes/Kate Havnevik/Frou Frou), Kate Havnevik (Norwegian songstress/Royksopp collaborator), Camille (EMI France), Carmen Rizzo (Seal/Oakenfold/Alanis Morissette) and even a spot of song writing with Killing Joke bassist Youth. And it's watched them devouring dancefloors in some of the most salubrious and progressive venues the country has to offer, not to mention live shows at the prestigious Tate Britain art gallery and the ICA in the pipeline.
And all the while they've been creating converts galore with, firstly, a presence that locks itself in glittering amber and gets welded to unsuspecting punters aplenty and, just as significantly, a host of songs that keep the flickeringly moribund nu-electro flame aglow with defiance and decadence, precision and passion. Mark Moore (S'Express) is love-pledgingly impressed and recently delivered a club remix of 'Blame' to show his belief in the band. London's most creative circles are embracing them like long-lost paramours and their new glam-pop single 'Joy' is poised to awaken the whole world to the thrills their dazzling debut album has in store. Temposhark may be dancing to their very own beat, but they're just the great white hopes you need.
Written by Iain Moffat.