Well, what have we here … a crate dig on the double, a revisitation station the second rhyme around … a so on, and co forth, etcetera etcetera, allusive iteration referencing our second installment of Vintage Reprise … round two exhumes a live fidelity aperçu, a precis glimpse into a day one indie pop stellar stalwart’s february 2012 showcase … so, without further ado, (re)fresh from the archives: florrie, live at barfly camden — as always, cheers … enjoi

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:: Vintage Reprise : Florrie – Live at Barfly Camden (04 Feb 2012) [ fr. Live-Fi: Florrie – HMV’s Next Big Thing, Barfly Camden, London ; 02.07.12 ] ::

Pop. Out. My. Ears. #yes

The Siren: Florrie Arnold

The Scene: Snow, ice, pints, and Summer Nights… on the outside: London’s first snow of the year, on the inside: the strobed sublime of HMV’s Next Big Thing — snowfall, and a highball under the disco ball make for a splendid sonic nightcap. 

Roughly speaking, Barfly hosted a beautiful melange of art gallery purveyor types, thirty-something Euro/Dance aficionados, twenty-something knit hooded hipsters, Camden characters, low-key Diesel-and-cardigan donning Pop fiends, raven-haired East London teens … moustaches, brown leather satchels and black rimmed glasses, cocktail dresses, red lipstick and suede heels, scarves and sailor stripes …

On the floor: an Anglophilic audience with a distinct taste for Xenomania; at the helm: a doe-eyed, denim-donning neo-disco diamond in the rough behind a pulsing pokerface bluff, and the beat of her own drum #litrally

The Sound: All the best bits of Brit-and-Synth-Pop — period. Much like a fine wine, or the Fugees break-up, Florrie’s stint as an unsigned artist yields a product that gets better with time. Saturday’s set list covered her relatively brief solo back catalogue, spanning both her Introduction (“Left Too Late,” “Summer Nights,” “Give Me Your Love“) and Experiments (“Begging Me,” “I Took A Little Something,” “Experimenting with Rugs,” “What You Doing This For”) EPs, while throwing some new tracks in the mix (“Without A Trace,” “Go“) for fresh measure.

The set played through much like her sound as a whole: begin with a saccharin ephemeral shell, ease into the groove, layer cake the synth progression, pull in the listener with a smooth bassline midway through the first half, sidechain that bass into a boom, crescendo to a crest through vocals ebbing, fading, and flowing — pause, suspend, peak, drift, beat drop, close on the sub climax. When you’ve got that in your headphones: it’s fine; when you’ve got that in subs and a small sea of people — it gets real. Studio cuts are real as is, live though… said system becomes something of a surreal situation.

It’s that “all the best bits of Brit-and-Synth Pop” sound. It’s the brilliant, cool detachment of lyric and demeanor against the visceral basslines and primal percussion… its the snowball and the disco ball. It’s the rhythmic subtle soul of the Spice Girls, a touch of the ska to synth evolution of Lily Allen, the breathy vocals coasting over multi-layered synth and string progression of Goldfrapp, the unadulterated heartbreakingly smooth beat shakes of Little Boots, of course it’s the Xenomaniacal essence of Girls Aloud, The Saturdays and The Pet Shop Boys, as much as it is the aspirational tandem in concept and instrumentation of true Dance music, the kaleidoscopic swelter, the endless beat of the night fueling Disco, it’s the devil-lays-there attention to diamond precise production, it’s the effortless fusion of live and synthesized, of not distinct genres, but just good, well-crafted music from the ground up — and then, to polish it with a Pop veneer. Yet and still, it’s all signature. It’s all the best bits of, not Stateside Bubblegum, but British Green & Black’s Pop — still sweet, but a bit richer, a bit more organic, a bit more naturally eargasmic Pop.

So, there’s that… here, live — and in living color.

Watch This Space: Call. 9. 1. 1. #shesontherun

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:: Live-Fi: Florrie – HMV’s Next Big Thing, Barfly Camden, London : Setlist Playlist ::

· “Left Too Late” · · “Begging Me” · · “I Took A Little Something” · · “Experimenting With Rugs” · · “Summer Nights” · · “Give Me Your Love” · · “She Always Gets What She Wants” · · “What You Doing This For?” · · “Without A Trace” · · “Go” · · “Call 911” (Fred Falke Mix) ·

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Live-Fi: Florrie – HMV’s Next Big Thing, Barfly Camden, London