BULLIT - Issue 2 - March / April 2004
Timothy Mark Chipping on RIVIERA F

"While the majority of bands jam and slog and demo their way to a deal (“We just do what we do, man!”), a rare few arrive fully formed; planned to the last detail in the imaginations and bedrooms of their creators. Euro-synth pop quartet Riviera F were thought rather than formed, and now those electric dreams are becoming reality with the release of their debut single, produced by Duran Duran’s master of make up and panache Nick Rhodes.
For school friends Alexa Marlen (Russian) and Kairo Sin (Dutch), Riviera F grew from mutual boredom. “Riviera F existed in theory before it existed in reality,” the group’s lyricist and singer Alexa explains, “It was a really bad time for music. Post Britpop, Toploader or something,” “It was no fun,” agrees her co-writer and guitarist Kairo, “We tried to create something that was missing. The ideal pop band.” The girls’ ideal consisted of electronic, scratchy but commercial, pop songs delivered in Alexa’s sexy Bond villain accent. Their angularly handsome keyboard players, the French Etienne LeBeau and English Logan Sky, were more stalked than recruited. “I think we asked every good looking boy in London if he wanted to be in Riviera F. Like model scouting!” Alexa laughs.

But dreams never come completely true and one’s perfect pop group must emerge from the bedroom to greet the grubby world of The Industry. “We thought we’d get a record deal straight away because we were so great!” declares Kairo with disarming honesty, “We marched into record companies and demanded appointments.” Well, it had worked for the Spice Girls. It nearly worked for Riviera F. After Larry Tee had asked the group to perform at his legendary Electroclash Festival in New York (“We couldn’t be bothered to go,” sighs Alexa, “Electroclash became boring after two weeks. We don’t want to be associated with that.”) US giant Columbia tried to sign the band. “But they didn’t understand us,” claims Alexa. “They completely misunderstood what we were about. Tape Modern understood it from the beginning.” And so they should. The label started by Nick Rhodes and Stephen Duffy, initially to put out their pre-Duran Duran ‘The Devils’ recordings, seems a perfect home for a group whose first single ‘International Lover’, a tale of jet setting romance set to a nu-wave disco beat, could be straight out of the Duran guide to living with style (“I met him in a members only club/He changed his flight to stay the night”). So how chic is Mr Rhodes? (who claims to have never set foot in a pub) “He likes picking up fluff from the carpet. There was a big new carpet and he kept sitting on the floor making balls of fluff like a kitten” Kairo giggles. A Duranies’ illusions lie shattered.

Despite their love of artifice, the group have illuminated London’s sweatboxes with regular gigging, building up a following of like-minded, like-dressing souls. Riviera F take a DIY attitude to clothing; Kairo makes her own outfits – using a staple gun: “Often we wear clothes that we don’t wear again. I get very quickly bored of things. I’ve become very proficient at stapling in the right places. Ten minute dresses!”

For Riviera F, boredom is a recurring theme. It was the motivating factor for all great pop movements from fifties rock ‘n’ roll to seventies punk - as was unswerving self-belief: “This is all we want to do,” insists Kairo, adding (in a refreshing change from the old “if anyone likes us it’s a bonus” cliché) “We expect people to like it.”