Artist: Ou Est Le Swimming Pool
Album: The Golden Year, Ministry of Sound Australia

London electro-pop trio debut on a melancholy note—in more ways than one

Anyone who listens to electro-pop has one thing in mind: dancing their sorrows away on a jam-packed dancefloor on a Saturday night at some hole-in-the-wall club at Kings’ Cross. The tragic flaw of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool’s debut album The Golden Year is that instead of your problems disintegrating into the sweaty blare of pumping speakers, they are magnified with heavy-hearted tales of tug-of-war love layered over mediocre synthesised backbeats.

The recent August 2010 suicide of 22-year old frontman Charles “Chazz” Haddon at the Pukkelpop festival in Belgium overshadows the standout party anthem and first single “Dance The Way I Feel” as the embodiment of danceable, 80s-influenced track and sort of indie companion to Lady Gaga’s breakout hit “Just Dance”.

Haddon laments “I’m next to nothing/next to nothing without it/without the hold and pain of your love” on the closing track “Next To Nothing”, highlighting the melancholy undercurrents of the album and the band’s uncertain future.

Key Tracks: “You Started”, “Dance The Way I Feel”