DeStijl love a joke: they formed before White Stripes released their album De Stijl in 2000 and so released an album White Stripes in 2011. This album is not their debut.

As you all know, De Stijl is Dutch for “The Style”, aka Neoplasticism, a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in Leiden by artists and architects, who simplified compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colours.

The band was formed in France in 1995 by Pascal DeStijl and John Cleary; we’re not sure if DeStijl is Pascal’s real name or whether they have anything to do with dead Dutch architects.

They released their debut DeStijl in 1997, and by 2012 were in Manchester to record with Chameleons Vox and I Am Kloot guitarist Yves Altana, persuading rent-a-bass Peter Hook to play on it.

This new album was also recorded in Manchester, and a tram station features on the cover.

Musically, it’s for fans of New Order and Moby in his somewhere-between-dance-and-trance phases. It’s clear why they like Manchester, as they probably spend six hours of every day listening to early to mid-career New Order. It’s nothing new but they do it well.

http://www.destijl.info/wp/destijl-the-band/