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Alex Kapranos (vocals/guitar) and Nick McCarthy (guitar/keys) met at a party, bonding over a mutual love for obscure German krautrock and the minimalist funk of ESG. They weren't interested in three-chord punk simplicity; they were interested in rhythm . They recruited Bob Hardy on bass and Paul Thomson on drums, and immediately imposed a set of radical rules: no guitar solos over 15 seconds, every song had to make you move your feet, and every lyric had to feel like a whispered secret or a dangerous proposition.