MANCHESTER pop band the Ting Tings have revealed how they felt at home on their third album - by going away to Ibiza.

The duo - Katie White and Jules De Martino - shot to fame with the smash-hit That's Not My Name single back in 2008, but their second album, Sounds From Nowheresville, was a flop, and left them feeling miserable.

So for new record Super Critical they swapped their second album base of Berlin for a move to the clubbers' paradise.

"When we move to a new place that has an effect on what the album will sound like," explains Katie, ahead of a King Tut's gig on November 26.

"We thought the album would be influenced by music played in Ibiza now, but it ended up the opposite effect - we made an album that was like what our dream club or party would sound like in the 1970s.

"That's very different from the EDM happening in Ibiza. When we got there it was out of season and like a ghost town, it was actually pretty cold and you just lock yourselves away and work."

The result is a funky record influenced more by disco than modern clubs, with elements from Diana Ross, Prince and Chaka Khan all being mixed together.

Helping the process along was the band's unusual choice of producer, former Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor.

He'd known the Ting Tings for a couple of years, and a suggestion that they try out some new material at his studio resulted in them being camped out there for nine months.

"Meeting Andy Taylor had a huge impact," adds Katie.

"We'd talk about the club feel we wanted and he'd say 'Oh my God, Studio 54, now that was a club' or I'd point to a picture of Diana Ross in a club and say that's the feel we wanted, and he'd go 'Oh, I was there that night'.

"He had all these stories and we tried to make the music that would sound right for that sort of club."

Katie does admit there was one early hindrance, when she didn't realise who Andy Taylor actually was.

"A couple of years ago we were rehearsing in a little studio up in the mountains, and he walked in," says Katie. "I had no idea who he was. He'd been there working for a bit and looked like a mad scientist."

It's clear the experience of recording Super Critical was a lot more enjoyable than Sounds From Nowheresville.

After having so much early success, the duo fell into the common problem of struggling to make a follow-up, not helped by issues with their then record label Sony.

"We'd been sitting on airplanes for four years (touring) and when we should have gone back to Manchester and analysed everything that had been going on, and all this craziness, instead we went to Berlin," say Katie.

"It's a great city, but we just felt strange for six months and were climbing the walls. We couldn't settle and couldn't find any satisfaction.

"That was mixed with a record label that had seen a big pop record, almost by accident, and then we were having meetings about what we should sound like. That terrified us."

Despite the group taking their time between albums, and choosing the title Super Critical, Katie reckons she's not the sort of person who spends hours going over songs until they're just right.

"I'm the complete opposite of a perfectionist. I'll listen to a half finished song and go oh, that makes you dance, let's release it," she laughs.

"Jules is a terrible perfectionist though, he's still talking about the first album and all the things on it he could have done.

"You have to pry the finished product out of his cold, dead hands before he'll release it.

"Maybe that mixture makes things work for us."

lTing Tings, King Tut's, November 26, £15, 8.30pm