This is an archive of the band profile for Cissy.

Matt Dixon - guitar / claves / cowbells / voice
Katie Moore - MikroKORG / keyboard / voice / handclaps
Gav Montgomery - bass guitar / voice / percussion
Matt Woodward - drum set / whooping

Cissy was a band from Leeds in the UK. The band existed between 2007 and 2011 during which they did two European tours, a UK tour and a live session for BBC radio. The band also shared stages with bands such as James Chance & Les Contortions, DAT Politics, Divorce, Cryptacize, Damo Suzuki, Bellini, Origami, Das Boton, Cowtown, Sal.P (Liquid Liquid), Weave!, So So Modern, Lovvers, Antlers, Quack Quack, Fulborn Teversham, Orchestre Tout Puissant, Bilge Pump, Hiroshima Rocks Around, Experimental Dental School, The Violets, Team Gina and more. Cissy also toured with both Origami (San Francisco) in 2008 and Das Boton (Chicago) in 2009. These two trips helped them cement themselves in the minds and dancing shoes of audiences in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Cissy was an unlikely meeting of Synthpunk and Afrobeat asteroids, skewed in rhythm and time, joyful in collision and radiating polyrhythmic ripples from the core. Matt Dixon, Katie Moore, Gavin Montgomery and Matt Woodward created an unpredictable musical cartwheel, taking elements of Eno-era Talking Heads, Synthpunk pioneers The Units, Chicago street corner hustlers Heroic Doses and Fivestyle. Cissy also chewed up further contemporary influences from bands like Mahjongg and LCD Soundsystem to blow up jittery, wonky and unflinchingly colourful songs. 'Ghost-ride The Whip' sounds like Beefheart doing Afrobeat, while 'Narp?' comes on like an Electro-Afrobeat wigout, born from a squelching arpeggiator.

Cissy has a three-song 12" due for release in 2010, plus a five-song debut cd, recorded in 2008 by legendary Leeds super-engineer Richard Formby.

"I have tried, in the past, to express my love for Cissy. I have proclaimed them the most danceable band on our island. I can't describe, but I can factualise (it is a verb, I swear): Cissy is a band with some fantastic pedigree. One of Leeds' finest drummers, Matt Woodward, has played with US bands The Lapse and Origami, as well as The Dragon Rapide. Their super-guitarist Matthew Dixon is clearly harbouring the key to the 32-hour day, playing in the similarly supreme Beards too. Biographies are rendered useless once Cissy hit the boards. They fly the joyful polyrhythmic flag with one hand and ignite a party popper in the other. They are fun as fuck. Funky as fuck. They are tropical, adventurous and spikey." Hayley Avron (Plan B magazine / The Iron Wagon).

Cissy broke up in June 2011. Gavin Montgomery, Matt Dixon and Matt Woodward now play in the band AZORES, a band which began playing gigs in Leeds in Autumn 2011 and which has developed the Cissy sound further. They plan to tour and record in 2012. Matt Woodward also plays in the band GALAXIANS, a band heavily influenced by early 1980s electro, house and artists such as Dam Funk and Patrice Rushen. Demos here: soundcloud.com/galaxians. Katie Moore plays synths in the band Executive Legs, who recently recorded a live session at BBC 6 Music.

Info: myspace.com/cissysound.