Tanlines (No 744)

Hometown: Brooklyn. The lineup: Jesse Cohen (drums, music), Eric Emm (guitar). The background: Apart from MGMT and Vampire Weekend, and to an extent Yeasayer, none of the billions of bands to have come out of Brooklyn over the past couple of years have made it. And some of them, to be honest most of them, have been really good – not just worthy of critical attention but seemingly possessed of considerable commercial potential, more often than not offering that much-sought-after but actually hard to achieve combination of experimentalism and accessibility. We know what happened to Boy Crisis and Chairlift – nothing happened to them, that's the point – but that doesn't seem to have deterred the Brooklyn hordes from continuing to make music seemingly in their thousands. In fact, this week we have heard about several brand new Brooklyn bands that are almost as good as the ones you already know about. Yup, three years after people started talking in terms of Brooklyn as the coolest rock city on earth, its status as such seems secure. No wonder New York magazine, just before Christmas, named Brooklyn "the music capital of America", the cover stars of the feature being the predictable MGMT, Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors, whose Stillness Is the Move was named the Number One Most Important Song in the entire scene – and, by implication, the whole of the States, indeed of our time. Now, whether or not Brooklyn is the USA's hippest square-few-miles we can't say for certain – and we're sure the participants in and around LA's Smell would have something to say about it – but there's no denying they keep delivering great new bands. Take Tanlines, the two members of which have done time in acts – probably decent ones, too – with names like Professor Murder, Don Caballero and Storm and Stress, and are now operating as a duo who remix and produce other artists (so far, the Tough Alliance, Au Revoir Simone, Angel Deradoorian of the Dirty Projectors, and Telepathe) and make their own dance music. They've described it as "danceable" music, drawing the distinction between pop music you can dance to, and music designed especially for clubs. They then cite Depeche Mode as an example of what they're trying to do, but the Basildon synth stars actually sound nothing whatsoever like Tanlines. No, they sound like a cerebral take on a tropical dance troupe, their music full of Caribbean flavours and hypnotic rhythms, but it feels organic even though some of it is electronic. Pointedly, the Tanlines pair have admitted that the last thing they want to do is be "dark" – this isn't that old staple "funk noir", nor is it "death disco". It reminds us more of tropical-tinged 80s pop and some of those loathed "Limey haircut bands" such as London-based trio Thompson Twins who, instead of exploring funk's heart of darkness, used it to add lilt and bounce to their music, much to the consternation of critics. 'Course, if they formed now and came from Brooklyn, the Twins – famously rechristened the Thompson Twats by Frankie Goes to Hollywood – would be hailed as gods. The buzz: "Percussive island music with a modern electronic sensibility." The truth: They're so cool they use steel drums in one song, and bongos in another, and they still sound OK. Most likely to: Encourage a Haircut 100 revival. Least likely to: Pen a funk tune about one of their relatives dying of cancer. What to buy: The Settings EP is available now to download, and to hear at Spotify. File next to: Talking Heads, the Police, Tears for Fears, Thompson Twins. Links: myspace.com/tanlinestheband Tomorrow's new band: Jay Electronica.