Happy birthday, Mascotte Zurich!

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…the much-loved Zurich club Mascotte is turning 8 years old on 12.02.12! That’s eight years of amazing music (just look at the Mascotte concert archive to see all the awesomeness that has passed through the Mascotte’s doors), good times and fun. I’ve spent many a happy night ensconced in front of one of the Mascotte pillars, soaking up good music.

And what’s a birthday without a party? Eclectic Finnish French duo The Dø will be playing on the night, and I’m sure they’ll be properly celebratory.

The Dø released their second album Both Ways, Open Jaws last year, the follow-up to 2008′s wildly diverse Open Mouth, a surprise chart topper in France. Sometime-actress and chanteuse Olivia Merilahti and film composer Dan Levy are whizzes at radically jumping genres, with styling and music ranging from Björk to blues to experimental jazz, rock, hip-hop and folk. I saw them last year at Komplex 457 where, if I recall correctly, their live set-up included a veritable kitchen sink of miscellaneous instrumentation (which might come in useful for birthday cake eating).

Watch ‘Too Insistent’, one of my favourite tracks from Both Ways, Open Jaws:

Here’s to another 8 years of brilliant live music from Mascotte. Thanks for all the good times!

The Dø play at Mascotte, ZH, on 12.02.12. Tix here.

Both Ways, Open Jaws is out now on Get Down!/Cinq 7/Wagram Music

Live review – The Dø @ Komplex, Zurich 18.03.11

It’s pretty risky to release an album and embark on a tour which focuses almost exclusively on the new material, especially when your old stuff is particularly beloved and well-known. You can’t blame the audience then for not responding as enthusiastically as you might like – they don’t know the new songs and so find them more difficult to apppreciate. That doesn’t mean that they don’t like you or your new material! Continue reading

Track of the day: The Dø – ‘The Bridge is Broken’

The Dø © Andre Gabby

Musical obsessions come and go, and here’s my latest acquisition for 2011 – The Dø, a stupidly photogenic French/Finnish duo who make exactly the kind of quirky, invigorating indie folk-rock I adore.

Finnish expat Olivia Merilahti and Frenchman Dan Levy traverse an eclectic range of genres on their 2008 debut album A Mouthful, from the kind indie pop that wouldn’t sound out of place in an Apple commercial (whether that is good or bad is up to you), to a deeper, folk-rock sound, rhythym & blues, and even a spot of (perhaps ill-advised) hip-hop and Cibo Matto-inspired acid jazz.

‘The Bridge is Broken’ is the fifth song from A Mouthful, and its refrain and toe-tapping, thigh-slapping beat immediately stuck in my head for days after I first played it. See if you can dislodge it from yours after watching this acoustic version:

The impeccably stylish Paris-based duo are just about to release their second album, Both Ways Open Jaws (see the teasers here), with the EP Dust It Off available now as a taste of things to come.

The Dø play @ Komplex, Friday 18.03.11. Tickets here.

The Dust It Off EP is out now. Both Ways Open Jaws is out 07.03.11 on Get Down!/Cinq7 Wagram

Click after the jump for more video awesomeness from The Dø. Continue reading