'London can take it' is an appropriate slogan as I write this on the eve of the 2012 Olympic experience.
This 5-track EP takes a look at the city in even more challenging times gone by.
Having access to the BFI library of propaganda films of 1939-42, the musical duo, with solid English names of J.Willgoose esq. and Wigglesworth, pay affectionate homage to a nation at war.
The EP is dedicated to J. Willgoose, Esq.'s great uncle, George Willgoose, who died at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940 aged 26.
The tracks are intended as a marriage of words, music and visuals so are best accessed and assessed via You Tube.
The couple's own PR team promote the instrumental electronica by highlighting its "atmospheric synths, pounding drums, Krautrock guitars and poignant piano".
There's a foreboding pulse to the rhythms that accompany the films 'If War Should Come' and 'London Can Take It' both of which advocate the importance of keeping calm and carrying on.
The practical survival strategy of growing your own fruit and vegetables is the message in 'Dig For Victory' and this has an Orbital style guitar and synth soundtrack ("the right tools for the job").
The lead track 'Spitfire' has a dynamic motorik beat and uses words and images from the 1942 Leslie Howard film 'The First of the Few', telling the story of the R.J.Mitchell the war plane's designer.
This is a poignant choice since Howard died when the passenger plane he was travelling on in 1943 was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the Bay of Biscay.
The final track of the EP, 'Waltz for George', is a slower, more melancholy piece featuring the banjolele owned by George Willgoose which has remained in the family.
This excellent EP is not a glorification of war but a celebration of the resilient spirit that carries through to this day in popular culture and political rhetoric. The films are precious historical documents and have been sensitively edited for the video tie-ins.
The relevance to our own time is clear since the message of If War Should Come is one the Olympic Games planning committee would wholeheartedly endorse "Britain is a nation prepared".
