The Krautrock Kaptain’s desk had seen better days. Conny Plank, legendary producer of Kraftwerk, had built the mixing desk to his own specs, using it on everything from Autobahn to the Eurythmics’ debut and Ultravox’s Vienna, before his untimely death in 1987. The desk had lain in his studio outside Cologne, switched off and dormant, adrift in cobwebs. There was only one other mixing desk like it: purpose built by Conny for Can, it was now a permanent working exhibit in a museum. But maybe there was still life – still cutting-edge, robo-soul tunes – lurking under the Krautdust…?

The dance rock DJs and promoters had seen some great nights. Their London club Kill Em All had progressed from Camden’s gloriously grotty Barfly to the bodysonic dancefloor of ultra-club Fabric. The duo, Olly Dixon and Tim Lawton, called themselves Filthy Dukes, and they dug the records being put out by DFA in New York and Output in London. They booked early gigs by Bloc Party, Justice, Cut Copy, Crystal Castles, and Late Of The Pier – bands who fitted the DJ-slash-promoters’ musical vision of a banging night that mixed the energy of a live band with the power of dance music. Olly and Tim watched their bands soundcheck, watched them set up, watched how they worked the crowd, worked out how their own DJ sets could complement and enhance the live music. Like The Chemical Brothers back in the glory days of the Heavenly Social, they had a rare worm’s eye view of the nuts and bolts of what made a Big Bangin’ Tune. They put that understanding and feel to work on their first remix of The Rakes’ ‘22 Grand Job’ – a big song, retooled and rebooted which went on to be a dancefloor smash in its own right. As did their remix of The Maccabees ‘X-Ray’ that followed. Maybe the Filthy Dukes, brimming with their shopfloor/dancefloor savvy about the craft of writing songs, could make their own stand and make their own music…

It’s night time at Club Ralph (it’s always night time there), the northwest London studio that Filthy Dukes call home. It’s here that Olly and Tim work with the band’s third member, producer Mark Ralph. It’s here that Conny Plank’s old desk now lives, having been rescued from Cologne and lovingly restored by Mark. It’s here that their album, a genre-melting electro record with an indie heartbeat, has been lovingly, tweakingly, analoguely put together. ‘Nonsense In The Dark’ features proper songs – ones to move the head and your heart as well as the feet. It’s here where the three Dukes marshalled the disparate-but-united talents of a magnificent line-up of guest vocalists to help make their debut album. Tim himself takes up vocal duties, both for the live show and album highlight ‘Light Skips Cross Heart’.

A kind of groovy chaos informed the making of the first track they recorded. The vocoded digital soul of ‘This Rhythm’, featuring Samuel Dust from Late Of The Pier on vocals and will be the next single release.

Olly: “Late Of The Pier had contacted us a few years ago about playing Kill Em All at the Barfly, we loved them – they used to have their synths on ironing boards. So it was a natural choice to ask Sam to sing on our first track. Sam recorded his vocals in his bedroom while his mum was sleeping next door. Those demo vocals had a kind of magic property to them that we never managed to recreate in the studio.  So much of what made it onto the single is Sam singing in hushed tones from his bedroom. ‘This Rhythm’ was our first finished track and became the benchmark for the rest of the album.”

‘Messages’, meanwhile, featuring vocals from Swedish hotshot Tommy Sparks (last seen filling in on bass for Bloc Party), with its soaring golden melody has daytime radio smash
stamped firmly on its forehead. Children of the night that they are, Filthy Dukes admit they’re a little intimidated by its sunny popness.?

Olly: “We had this pop beast that was all glittery and shiny and we were trying to cover it in mud and smear it and pretend it was something else. We were a little scared of it to be honest. But then we realised that was stupid so we went back to the original, hosed it down and embraced it. We all love it now!”

Then there’s the limited edition single ‘Tupac Robot Club Rock’. The thunderous tune – big beats, big riffs – think Daft Punk goes hip hop, features a rap from Philadelphia outfit Plastic Little. Championed by Zane Lowe and Sara Cox on Radio 1, it’s a major moment in every Filthy Dukes live show after taking Glastonbury and Bestival by storm.

Fired-up and bristling with song ideas the trio continued assembling their dream team of vocalists; frYars, Brandon Curtis (Secret Machines), Foreign Islands, To My Boy, and Sunny Days Sets Fire all added to the album’s sonic palette. Orlando Weeks of The Maccabees sings on the title track of ‘Nonsense In The Dark’; a twinkling, wee-hours, ambient-throb gem with a tasteful hint of Kraut. Its gorgeous melancholy is the beating heart of the album, and its title is a neat encapsulation of the band’s approach.

And that includes channelling the spirit of vintage technology, rescued from the forgotten shadows and plugged into Filthy Dukes songs-based future-groove.?

Mark: “Connie Plank’s desk was fundamental to the sound of the album. It certainly made me fall in love with old analogue equipment again. Everything’s analogue on the album. We only use Pro Tools as a tape machine. It’s turned our minds back to how everyone used to work – these days people make dance music on a laptop on an aeroplane! But when you hear something that’s a bit rickety and fuzzy and hissy, it sounds fresh and brand new. After ten years where purely digital recording has come to dominate, people yearn for that rough edge.”

Performance is where Filthy Dukes are at. They’re taking ‘Nonsense In The Dark’ out on the road, and they won’t be hunkering behind some computers twiddling knobs or blinding us with a light show. These songs aren’t sleek android-electronica: they’re bleeping, popping analogue shakedowns, all elbows and knees and heart and soul. With the Dukes joined by a live drummer and Tim takes centre stage, effortlessly making all the songs his own. In true prog tradition they’re even building a monolithic stage prop – details to be revealed soon enough.

Meanwhile, their status as in-demand remixers continues apace, with new commissions for White Lies, Bloc Party and Lil Wayne cohort Kevin Rudolph. Filthy Dukes, like their album, are all over the place, in a good way; a debut album forthcoming in March, gigs and DJ dates around the globe, Kill Em All going from strength to strength, and now with its own KEA label to sign new up and coming talent that they meet along the way.

Now, with the clock hitting midnight (again!) at Club Ralph, Filthy Dukes have more secret plans and new sounds to work on. The Nonsense In The Dark continues.