Join JBTV in welcoming The Ting Tings. When the duo decided to decamp to Ibiza to record their third album Super Critical, Katie and Jules from the Ting Tings had a slight ‘uh-oh’ moment. ‘We’d been to Berlin to make the second record,’ says Jules, ‘and done nothing but get high and look at great architecture. Going to Ibiza had party written all over it. Obviously we were going to get nothing done.’ As it turned out, unleashing their party spirit was exactly the impetus and momentum needed to craft something special and true to the starting spirit of their musical adventures. The Ting Tings were born out of the night-time. They bonded at sun-up, wired in Salford warehouses. Success came as a surprising blind-side to them. Being in the middle of an island for the winter, having to make all their own fun? This is the stuff they excel at.
Physically, Super Critical began in a rented Finca not far from the town of Santa Gertrudis. Emotionally, the starting point for the record was the touchstone glamour and twilit excess of 70s New York. Katie happened upon a picture that would come to foreshadow everything they locked into the record, of Diana Ross emerging from behind a curtain into the DJ booth at Studio 54. ‘Everything about her, the dress, the hair, the make-up, made her look like the most exotic and effortless creation,’ says Katie. ‘She was so glamorous, so of a moment, so not overdone. If we could get a sound even 5% close to what that picture was giving us, we knew we were onto something.’
The duo became obsessed with the idea of a lost night-time history, pre-EDM, stadium house, the Vegas-isation of the beat, even before acid house. As dance music culture corporatized, stagnated and began eating itself with its own cheap branding, The Ting Tings started to readdress the possibilities of a party through the prism of the past. ‘Rhythm was the basis for everything that happened on this record.’ Groove was in their heart.
