Walking into the Light

Le Salon

Andy Cato and Tom Findlay make up Groove Armada

by Shane Danaher

The electro elder statesmen of Groove Armada age gracefully with White Light

Andy Cato and Tom Findlay entered the music business and the nightclub business in a single, ambitious leap during the London winter of 1997. They named both of their ventures Groove Armada and as the band (the more successful of those projects) has proven, the two concerns were born of a desire to simply get asses out onto the dance floor.

Groove Armada makes electronic music, and not the indie-fied, Americana-cized style proffered by Crystal Castles and LCD Sound System. Cato's and Findlay's tracks are meant for raves, born of the British scene that produced Simian Mobile Disco and, more generally, a shrugging disinterest in all non-synthetic instrumentation. It is because of that latter preference that White Light is a more interesting album than most in Groove Armada’s catalog.

White Light, the duo’s tenth LP since 1998, is a variation on a release from earlier this year, the aptly titled Black Light. Though the latter album was only a moderate success, Cato and Findlay have decided to expand on it by releasing this collection of live-in-studio versions of the same tracks. The results easily outshine the material on which they’re based.

On “I Won’t Kneel” and “Paper Romance,” club-synth retreads become menacing examples moody electronica. “Boom-pap” drums give way to texture – flourishes of guitar, intrusions of percussion. As filtered through the snarling organ tones of White Light, Groove Armada sounds like the work of two songwriters, rather than a couple of errant DJs. The addition of lead vocalist SaintSaviour has more than a little to do with this transition. It’s good to see her influence in causing the group’s turntable wizards to list ever-so-slightly away from ecstatic house music and toward cranky pop.

This is most apparent on Groove Armada’s dalliances in rock and roll. On tracks such as “Look Me in the Eye Sister” the keyboards are ditched for Clash-aping guitars and the album reveals a glimpse (if only that) of the punk rock ethos lurking beneath White Light. Cato and Findlay tend to stick close to the house music standbys of dancing and fickle love in their lyrics, but with “Paper Romance” and the aforementioned “Look Me in the Eye Sister,” there’s a sophistication of theme that goes beyond the ecstasy-fueled party to the morning after, maybe even to the hangover brought on by a decade of such overindulgence.

Groove Armada has been kicking around Europe’s club scene for almost 15 years, and rather than sounding disillusioned, overdosed, or just exhausted, the group sounds like it has grown into its age with some amount of forethought.

For a duo that grew up on a dance floor, adulthood is proving a less grating prospect than you might imagine.

White Light is available now on Bacardi/Cooking Vinyl records.

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