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CHIKINKI are:
Rupert Browne - vocals, guitar
Ed East - lead guitar
Steve Bond - drums
Boris Exton - synthesizers
Trevor Wensley - synthesizers
Chikinki 5-piece formed in Bristol. Holed up in their shared house they recorded their first album, 'Experiment With Mother' and set about learning how to weld dirty synths to catchy pop. Shortly after this they were snatched up by Island Records who gave them their first big-studio experience by pairing them up with producer Steve Osborne to record the album, 'Lick Your Ticket'.
Chikinki were too busy touring with the likes of Kasabian, The Kaiser Chiefs and The Charlatans at the time to realise that these were the last days of the Major Recording Empire, but if the feverish spending didn't make it clear, the day the marketing department spent 'researching' exotic dancers should have done.
Subsequently Chikinki turned their attention to other shores and found refuge in the arms of more family-sized record companies such as Kitty-Yo and Weekender. Their last album 'Brace, Brace' acquired plentiful radio play with its single 'You Said' and represented their tauter, tighter live sound.
From the stages of Glastonbury and V to Berlin Techno clubs; from Texas to Moscow, from champagne-sodden fashion parties to run-ins with the bothersome Bavarian Border Police - this has been an interesting time. So when Chikinki decided to set up for a month to write and record a new album in Berlin's Studio East it was clear that it would have a lot to say for itself.
Released in March, 'Bitten' is the fourth album from long-term synth pop adventurists, Chikinki. It is a bold amalgamation of glam-rock, jangle-guitared pop, fuzz-synthed rock and electro-disco. Songs such as 'Catch Up' and 'When We Land' set a snarling, dark backdrop broken up with flashes of light from 'All for One' and the very catchy first single, 'Bitte Bitte'. This is a confident, grown-up record befitting a band who trail behind them an eventful 14-year history of onstage chaotics, pop oddity, tours, record companies and international antics.
Shimmering, strutting; full of songs about space love, landladies, silver gods and tram-based whimsy, it is, like the band's past, a strange and exhilarating experience.
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