The Ting Tings Resurface In New Video “Hang It Up”

Becky Bain | October 18, 2011 11:00 am

It was nearly a year ago when we had a nice long chat with Katie White and Jules De Martino of The Ting Tings, who previewed us a handful of tracks from their sophomore album, which the British duo began recording a year prior — so basically, this album has been a very, very long time in the making. Thirteen months after dropping their single “Hands”, the Grammy-nominated pair have revealed a new song and video for “Hang It Up”. Catch it below.

The video, which was co-directed by the band, features White and De Martino performing in a skate park, and ends with a little samurai action as Katie channels The Bride from Kill Bill.

The Ting Tings – “Hang It Up”

The version of the album the duo previewed for us last November was what they called a “playlist album”, as they found inspiration from a variety of musical styles during the writing process:

Jules: It kind of became kind of a concept… if we made an electro kind of song, right, we don’t want to make another electro song now, lets make a moody 60s song.

Katie: We get bored easy.

Jules: If I pulled out a Kings of Leon track and I had it as number one [on a playlist], I might go something like Fleetwood Mac for number two. But certainly by three that’s f***ing it, I don’t want anything rock on number three. As I’m walking down the street, I want something else to hit me, like “Holiday” by Madonna… the surprise is there. And that’s kind of how we plotted this album.

The album, which was written and recorded in Berlin, was initially scheduled to drop in Spring 2011, but for whatever reasons, it was shelved. They next hit up London and Spain to record new tracks.

The band, who are signed to Roc Nation, tells Jay-Z’s Life + Times blog, “We wanted to make a very primal, raw album that was honest and experimental and as always rhythm based. The songs recorded in Berlin have a different sound to those jammed in Spain. Berlin songs are more ‘tech ‘n spacey’ and melancholic… I think the songs from London and Spain sound like us getting out of the dark place and have a more aggressive funk sound to them.”

As Consequence Of Sound notes, Amazon lists the LP scheduled to drop on January 16, 2012 in the UK.