Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - Trouble Review

Dance artist Teed, aka Orlando, already has plenty of feathers in his cap, from remixing Lady Gaga and working with Friendly Fires to being picked for Damon Albarn's DRC Music project with Oxfam, and his debut album will be another. Expertly tweaked synths sit on a bed of complex beats mixing house and techno with subtle nods to sundry other genres. Tracks such as Household Goods have a Daft Punk feel, while Solo combines a driving beat with pleasingly weird harmonies. If Orlando's vocals verge on the plangent, the female riffs on Your Love could be Black Box; The American Dream Part II, which is being used for a Vauxhall ad campaign, instils a dark euphoria....full text There's a lot of clever things going on in this debut album by 22-year-old Orlando Higginbottom (below). Feted as the new face of pop/dance crossover, he wears headdresses like Lady Gaga and shows equal bravado in the musical influences he has acquired. Higginbottom has the melancholic vocal style of art-dance faves Junior Boys, a dollop of Hot Chip's playfulness and the retro-house music tones currently filing fashionable dancefloors across the UK. It's a mix that can fit well together, as on Trouble, where flighty synths and a Latin house rhythm underpin the plaintive chorus "You could make me happy", before giving way to a bass-driven section that suggests this happiness might not be immediately attainable. For the most part, however, enthusiasm and influences are not matched by the songwriting. Garden, the soundtrack to a Nokia ad campaign, is a case in point; its jaunty hook sticking in your head over 30 seconds, but over the course of four and a half minutes, it begins to sound a little over-exposed....full text Us Brits have always mixed a tradition for stiff upper lips with a flamboyant love of dressing up. From traditional Morris dancing to the unsmiling Queen's Guards; to the astronaut, deep sea diver and dead rock stars found queuing politely during festival season: we're all suckers for organised fancy dress.

Cue Orlando Higginbottom, the mastermind behind Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Since the 2009 release of his debut EP on Hot Chip member Joe Goddard's Greco-Roman label, his initial homemade green pyjamas/all-in-one dinosaur outfit has blossomed into an over sized chieftains headdress and subsequently a resplendent glitter-covered frill of a Triceratops.

Flanked by two female dinosaur dancers, balloons and confetti cannons, there's not a stiff lip in sight at his live shows; but pinned beneath the amusing aesthetics there is a discipline with which he approached the production of this outstanding debut album.

As the carnivalesque nature of his concerts suggests, TEED's philosophy is not to be taken too seriously. Amongst a sea of steely electronic producers, the relaxed freedom with which he flits between styles is a practice within itself. Long-term fans might be disappointed with the inclusion of previously released tracks Garden and Household Goods, but they serve as reminders that his slick take on smart pop could rival that of Simian Mobile Disco or LCD Soundsystem, and that he shouldn’t be marginalised as simply a dance act....full text