Arcade Fire play fast and loose

By Hazel Sheffield

It started with a mysterious symbol spelling "Reflektor", chalked onto pavements in cities around the world. Then a mural in downtown Manhattan signalled a date, 9/9, and a time, 9pm. At that moment, Arcade Fire launched their fourth album with a seven-minute single featuring backing vocals from David Bowie, production by James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem and two videos, including one that viewers can interact with using their phones to reflect light into the picture.

The fanfare is fitting for an album that turns out to be full-blooded and experimental. Its two sides slip between dark disco, full of honking sax and stabs of piano, and the more familiar heavy guitars, swirling feedback and doomy themes. It sounds both like Arcade Fire and like nothing they've ever done. "Here Comes the Night Time" and "Flashbulb Eyes" have a rhythmic looseness that comes of writing and recording in Jamaica and Haiti, where Régine Chassange, one half of the married couple at the heart of Arcade Fire, has roots. Haiti has always influenced them—there is a song named after it on their debut album—but now voodoo rhythms, as Chassange's husband Win Butler (above) calls them, permeate their sound. There are plans to take conga players on tour.