Whilst Ibiza is most famous for its house scene and monster clubs, the thing I enjoyed most on my recent trip there was lying by the pool at the beautiful Hotel Es Vive, sipping a glass of rose as the excellent DJs played some relaxed tunes. One particular day saw one guy play some amazing cover versions, including Baby Charles’ version of the Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

One of the first things I did when I got home was to track down their debut album on emusic and download it. And, unlike a lot of things that seem like a good idea on holiday, I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor by Baby Charles sounds just as good as home as it did by the pool: it’s a rough & ready slice of funk, which reminds me a lot of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (whose excellent excellent Got A Thing On My Mind I reviewed last year).

The lead singer, Dionne Charles, has a quite incredible voice but, unlike many British soul singers, she doesn’t try to put on an American accent. In fact, her singing with her normal accent is quite possibly another reason why Baby Charles were attracted to the Arctics, seeing as Alex Turner so proudly sings in his Sheffield accent.

As far as I can tell the band are from Brighton, Mark Lamaar is a huge fan, and whilst I haven’t listened to the whole of their eponymous album yet, if the rest of the tracks are even a fraction as good as their cover of I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor, then it’s liable to be one of my records of the year. And for all you cover version nuts out there it also features a cover of DJ Shadow’s track This Time (the rather ace video of Shadow’s original version is below).

You can buy all their releases on their site (as well as listening to most of the tracks) so why not give Baby Charles a go? I bet that you end up on the dancefloor.

Dancefloor image: alexdecarvalho on flickr