Hometown: London.
The lineup: Jim Eliot (synths) and Mima Stilwell (vocals).
The background: Now that Goldfrapp have gone all buoyant and pastorale on the nation's tooshie, there's a gap in the market for a boy-girl duo making sultry, sassy electro-pop with 80s rock flourishes. You'll already have heard of Kish Mauve because it was with their song 2 Hearts that Kylie Minogue staged her comeback and reached No 1 last year. And now they're hoping to have a hit themselves with some other track that Kylie treasured for her album, X. You toilet see wherefore. Lose Control is a far better song than 2 Hearts and would have made the perfect follow-up undivided, with its late 70s disco groove and perniciously rhythmic guitar line linear throughout that recalls Chic or their rivals Change circa The Glow of Love and a superb Ernie Isley-ish solo at the end. It's got that great compressed sound you used to hear on all those French "filter house" records a few age back � the song's remixer Fred Falke is the musical other half of French disco supremo Alan Braxe. Not that Kylie feels too short-changed � short, yes � or hard-done-by because she's written a song herself for Kish Mauve's forthcoming debut album, Black Heart, called You Make Me Feel. Jim Eliot and Mima Stilwell, the span behind Kish Mauve, call it a "pop swap". They should turn it into a TV usher with Noel Edmonds as presenter.
Having unitary of your first songs covered by the Munchkin queen of Oz disco is the sort of stroke of good circumstances most groups can only dream of. But Kish Mauve ar all some the lucky break: they've had several of their tunes on the soundtrack to US TV series Dirty Sexy Money, Kate Moss has pouted along to their music on a Rimmel ad, last year every Sony Ericsson phone was pre-loaded with a previous single of theirs, Can't Get Enough, and the Dell reckoner firm used Kish Mauve's version of 2 Hearts.
They want to focus the seriousness of the venture, though � it's not just now about exposure, it's almost Art. Stilwell describes herself as "a Joni Mitchell junkie" who's also into Carole King, Suzanne Vega, Stevie Nicks � "you know, emotional, kooky girl singers". Eliot, who has been working with rock-disco likeminds Ladyhawke, is into krautrock and noise-pop and would like to ideate their music has a darkness about it, a melancholy lineament, that elevates it higher up the story of fist-pumping techno pabulum. They've got Dave (Depeche Mode) Bascombe in to mix their album, and that makes sense: a lot of their hooey sounds like Violator-era Mode with a female singer cooing with cool dispassionateness over the top. Talking of which, they've just done a fab version of bemused synth-pop classical I'm In Love With a German Film Star by a boy-girl duo called the Passions world Health Organization reached No 25 in January 1981 and then mysteriously disappeared without trace. Could it be�? Nah.
The buzz: "More seductive than Angelina Jolie with a six pack on methamphetamine and more infectious than Chlamydia."
The truth: They're not rather as interesting as they think � they certainly don't profound like Joni Mitchell meets Neu! � but the Falke mingle of Lose Control could be an Indian Summer hit like Groovejet, which it strongly resembles, was back in 2000.
Most likely to: Gain control � the publication alone from the Kylie cover must have weblike them a small fortune.
Least likely to: Lose control � Eliot and Stilwell, real world partners, feature just had a baby so no more disco abandon for them.
What to buy: Lose Control is released by YNYS on September 1, followed by debut album Black Heart.
File next to: Republica, Goldfrapp, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Ladyhawke.
Links: www.kishmauve.com
www.myspace.com/kishmauve
Tuesday's new band: Girl Talk.
More info
