A cursory search for “django” on Google will likely return a long list of references to the open-source web framework used in the creation of many powerful Python computer language-based web pages. However, there are numerous other meanings including those derived from several movies wherein it is colloquially referred to as a manner of badassery or toughness, even wannabe hoodlum idolatry or such. None of which would be the given origins of band Django Django’s delightfully avant-garde nom de plume, that still remains a mystery.

“Stepping out, away from a burning heat
The water we drink has never tasted this sweet
Fevered devotion, deep as the ocean
Saved us from what should have been
Cool winds will blow, we’ll try to show how we feel”

Based in London, England, and formed in 2009, Django Django’s band members would meet at the Edinburgh College of Art and create their first album, as millions of others have aspired to, pottering around in their pyjamas, in a bedroom no less. And with such inauspicious beginnings, one would expect exactly what this quartet of striving artists expected: an initial pressing of perhaps 100s of copies and, “having to hire a garage somewhere to put them all while they gathered cobwebs”, which would most certainly turn out not to be the case.

”Overcome, drowned by a deafening roar
Heard it above, it’s something we can’t ignore
Night is eroding, daylight has broken
Bathed in the light of the sun
Melting away, we’ll try to gauge how we feel”

Instead, their self-titled debut album would be released in 2012 with a Mercury prize nomination, a song featured in a football game by EA Sports, FIFA 13, and yet another in Grand Theft Auto V, combined with critical praise in such lofty end-of-year lists as Rolling Stone and the NME, culminating in unforeseen sales approaching 100,000 in the UK alone. All this leading to a surprise two-year tour and being whisked off to Australia among many fan-fueled destinations, with the Japanese Fuji Rock Festival in particular, featuring 60,000 fans, really bringing home the contrast from earlier UK backroom sessions. Said Dave Maclean, the band’s drummer and producer, “Just being in front of that many people feels strange, but especially when you’re trying to recreate these crappy bedroom recordings … Not having a clue what we were doing, just giving it a go.”

”In your beat
Dancing with me”

Fast-forward to 2018, with third album release Marble Skies and today’s featured track “In Your Beat” in which the band would continue their “tuneful and experimental mix of psychedelia, folk and the sound of coconut shells being bashed together to make a noise like galloping horses.” A video collaboration between rave art designer Brodie Kaman and animation director Sophie Koko Gate (AKA SKG) to bring Maclean’s idea of Brodie’s 2D posters to life in their music video. “He wanted to create a sort of poster world, that the band is trapped within,” says Brodie. “It takes place in a surreal, mixed-media place, blurring the lines between my static work and Sophie’s animation style.” The result: an infectious earworm of giddy proportions with avant-garde Gilliam-esque acid collages serving as otherworldly reminders of the beauty in surrealism that transports us to new badass heights.

”Why we gotta be so damn low?
Why we gotta be so damn low once again?”

~

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LABEL: BECAUSE MUSIC

Many salient details were sampled from theguardian.com’s article:
Django Django: ‘After Our First Album Everything Went Nuts’
Cover Art “avid aural abuse” © 2023 – disturbedByVoices – All Rights Reserved