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Spotlight

Fischerspooner

Who: Composer Warren Fischer and his Art Institute of Chicago schoolmate/vocalist Casey Spooner. Dancers, backup singers, chocolate-syrup wranglers, and wig fluffers flesh out the duo’s live performances.

Sound Like: They’ve been lumped in with Brooklyn’s ’80s-plundering electroclash scene, but Spooner doesn’t believe in the much-idealized decade: “The ’80s are a fiction. Everybody is re-creating a culture that never existed.” The duo’s debut album, #1, draws from late-’70s influences like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder.

Why You May Have Heard of Them: Their single “Emerge” is already a club smash. Or maybe you’ve been studying abroad? If you rolled up their European press clippings, you could housebreak a dog. “The mythmaking is out of control,” Spooner says. “If I really wanted to be legendary, I should just die now.”

Why You Don’t Need an MFA to “Get” It: Fischerspooner are high-concept but funny. Their shows are a riot of glitter and feathers, plus Spooner’s perversely obvious lip-synching (he’ll begin a song with “Press play, Warren!”). “We wanted to appeal to a broader audience,” Spooner says. “Whether it’s some celebutron like Bianca Jagger or a kid from Topeka, everyone loves a good party.”