Onward Charles: Let The Movement Begin

In the 1980s, the dance and new wave scene became so infiltrated with bands that everyone began to sound the same. As an attempt to salvage the scene, a vast majority of the bands built a time machine, and transported themselves to the late twenty-first century. Meeting with the same results in the future, they have been travelling back in time one by one. Rather than going in one large group, the bands decided to be dropped off in various time locations between the Then and Now. One thing was decided though, they all wanted no part in the twentieth century. They were over it.

So with the arrivals of Interpol, Bloc Party, She Wants Revenge, Arctic Monkeys, Test Icicles, Protokoll, and so on, there is reason to suspect that these are, in fact, Ghosts From 80s Past. Perhaps there were slight cosmetic surgeries involved in the process of modifying their Reagan rock with super-future synthesizers, but I think you're picking up what I'm putting down here.

But this is neither here nor there. Save it for the day that Chuck Eddy inherits Area 51, and then science and rock & roll explode and we start worshipping guitars and Moogs.

The point I'm trying to make regards a grossly underrated band from the UK. The aesthetically pleasing British fivesome White Rose Movement - named after the Nazi resistance circa WWII - was formed, of all places, on a hippie commune. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine...

...this to sprout from such a topsoil, but I speak the truth.

They've already played Making Time. Already played Coachella. Their album, Kick, has just been released, but has already been heard and remixed around the nation. The White Rose Movement is a gripping sound. Upon fiftieth-plus listen of their album's self-titled opener, I sit here typing humbly; not even near a dance floor, the organs in my chest are swelling up the way that only really. fucking. good. dance music can.

Then the original mix of "Girls In The Back" kicks in to take over, and I sit with my head tilted back. Staring at the ceiling, listening for several minutes.

This is perfect.

This is exactly what we are looking for.

And apparently I'm not the only one.

"Movement," indeed.