Kudu

The past few years have seen a thawing of indie disdain toward dance music; rock shows that used to be domino rows of the stylishly dead now reveal vaguely coordinated twitches of life. Kudu is the latest act in a loose lasso that includes everyone from Peaches to the Rapture to instigate this animation. Lead singer Sylvia Gordon has perfected the suggestive sneer, like Siouxsie Sioux with more slink, or Alison Goldfrapp with a poisoned jag in her exhale and a longer blade on her stiletto heel. Deantoni Parks, the man behind the minimalist beat seizures, borrows as much from Apollonia and Berlin as he does from Timbaland, creating tightly coiled backdrops that pin down Gordon's lithe snarls. The Atari-tongued grooves have much of the spooky synth tint of new wave, but the beats echo with the much harder cross-section where hip-hop and club music swig from the same bottle.