Cuttings

QUANDO QUANGO: Love Tempo ( Factory Benelux ) Oh dear. Quando Quango are the type of band you'll find splashed across the pages of Monotony Mentor being called the greatest thing since sliced Joy Division or whatever. I'd dearly love to herald this as a danceable solution but all it amounts to is more brain pollution; a clumsy dancebeat, a downright atrocious voice, Blancmange type lyrics and the old Devotoism (" Feet beat up the beat ") slung in for good luck. A void.

The atom rock attack - will it start with QUANDO QUANGO, a group from the Factory? JAMES SHELLEY tackles this serious problem... pic KEVIN CUMMINS Just before I arrive for my meeting with Quando Quango, it occurs to me that their music is perhaps rather too much like the people that merrily produce it: polite, modest, calm, cheerful, agreeable, rational. A little plain . Ideally speaking, they seem to lack a thrust, a final feeling for threat, for flair, the urge to thrill and thrive, to set alight . Things seem so friendly... “Yes they are. It's just enjoyment really. There’s no point in doing it if you're not going to entertain." We get stuck here. It takes two interviews, three months apart before I begin to appreciate QQ's happy attitude, their straightforward pragmatism and for Mike Pickering (their blunt, dull, sensible, enormously affable singer-saxman), to comprehend the value of the mad impulses and stubborn insistence I throw at him. The imminent reacti...

WHEN TO QUANDO AND WHEN TO QUANGO BASICALLY, IT takes two to Quango, a fun new way of maintaining 'Love Tempo' without ever  having to look your partner in the eye. The Quango is the most devastatingly appropriate form yet devised to fit that peculiar hybrid of disco and detachment coming out of Manchester. It is not so much a semi-detached disco, the stuff of urbane Northern soul dreams, as a demi-monde disco, which draws more from the No New York of Chance than the rocksteady Funhouse New York of Baker. It is droll bordering dreary, worldly wise and just a touch weary; yet, like many city pleasures, it is immensely addictive once you've adapted to its sense of time. In the case of Quando Quango's Factory 12" 'Love Tempo', that means falling in behind a hopalonga cowboy rhythm - sort of honky-tonkin’ disco - and keeping apace the electronic breaks, while a saxophonist/vocalist Mike Pickering drily exhorts you to have a good time. It might only...

QUANDO QUANGO Brixton Fridge "FANCY SEEING Quando Quango tonight?" Who or what is Quatro Gringo? "They're from Manchester. They're on Factory." (Oh God) Really? But of course, I go. Relief: they're not a 'Factory' band if you know what I mean. Aswad meets Antena? Probably not, but it's difficult to tell when the PA's full of golden syrup. Dutch girl Connie Rietveld's drum machine won't work, Mike Pickering's sax sounds like a wet fart, the bass is inaudible, the hack sitting beside me decides to leg it. Crambo Crossbow would appear to be a dance band (a demo tape and collection of quick-steppers with vivid imaginations confirms this) but tonight they're not given much of a chance. Crap concert, lotsa potential, nice shoulders. Not necessarily in that order. DAVID ELLIOTT

QUANGO QUANGO Pigs & Battleships ( Factory ) HAPPILY, QUANGO have slipped thataway . Flinging off the (s)light, merry dabbling and friendly jingles of 'Love Tempo' and ‘Atom Rock', 'Pigs' sees QQ skipping past the pigeonholes, seizing you by the heels and dipping into a colourful lucky-bag of rhythms (salsa, funk, latin, calypso, you-name-it) with a deliciously contagious ingenuity and ease. 'Rebel' aside, 'Pigs’ is more Slits and less Modem Romance than before, with Gonnie Rietveld’s artfully Ari-ish phrasing and footing taking over from Mike Pickering’s dour chants and flat enthusiasm. From the frisky tricks and busy mischief of the opening 'Genius' and Go Exciting’ through the Brazilian 'Danger Man’ theme on ‘ST, the lovers rock-bubblegum of ‘This Feeling’ (Syreeta-sweet until some  pointlessly token toasting) and the closing cover of War's 'Low Rider', Quando are consistently  surprising and persuasive. Full of s...