Freshly signed to Darren Emerson's hot Underwater label (home to Tim Deluxe, Mutiny and Emerson himself), the irrepressibly cool Gus Gus take the label of 'dance artist album' by the horns and twist it until its veins pop out.
'Attention' seeks to grab us by being, in many ways, a demanding album to listen to.
On tracks like 'David', where the listening is easy, Gus Gus remind me of Electribe 101 without Billy Ray Martin's presence or maybe like a late Deee-Lite - all ethereal, ad-libbed vocal moodiness and compressed electronic tinkering to a disco beat. At times orchestral and religious, 'Desire' and 'Detention's music breathes hotly and heavily over a restrained and instrumentally icy window.
Then in a more upbeat mood, 'Dance You Down' is aimed more directly at the dance floor with its gutsy, gristly bass line whilst 'I.I.E' and 'Your Moves Are Mine'deliver volcanic slabs of taut tech-house that would have no trouble forging thunderbolts for Jove.
Gus Gus can be seen to have developed a simple, soulful, subtly layered and deceptively understated style that's perfectly suited to the ambience in chill out rooms, and atmospherics in heaving underground sweat boxes, festival tents, cinematic clubbing scenes and dream sequences.
Tracks like 'Call Of The Wild' and 'Don't Hide What You Feel' are cases in point here.
Earlier, the 'Magic's Wand' sampling, effects laden 'Attention' takes care of the sweat boxes side of things but may also be considered a bit too soundtrack-y in its execution than your average club DJ could program into your common or garden club set.
As home listening, 'Attention' is surprisingly meditative and challenging but (and you can prove me wrong if you wish) I can't see where it strikes at the heart of any dance floor unless the as yet unreleased single remixes are completely mind-blowing - and then I will be happy to eat my words with a two inch layer of English Mustard on them.
Moreover - and not that it's any criteria for success or failure - I can't hear a huge hit single here, so unless they hit a rich seam a la Royksopp, by stuffing a couple of lucrative advertising licences under their belts, this looks like an Annie Nightingale / Mary Anne Hobbes / Xfm special.
It wades in at the deep end of the underground yet paddles in the shallow end of the main stream.
