Noah and the Whale
I’m presuming Noah and the Whale to be part of some sort of London gang that includes Emmy the Great, Movern Callar, Johnny Flynn, Jeremy Warmsley and other London based musicians I’ve spoken about in the last year, who all have a spring in their step and a guitar to strum wistfully. I expect they have secret handshake and some sort of plan to take control of the Underground network that has already been sketched out on blueprints but the do they have a plan B? I’m guessing music and folk plays an important part of it.
But that’s wishful thinking. I’m also going to wishfully think that some of these scamps get some success a la Jeremy Warmsley’s much lauded debut album…. perhaps Noah and the Whale will offer it? Or maybe a compilation CD can be released that actually has some relevence to a tangible group of people making similar music together linked geographically and socially instead of by an awful magazine who can’t write and are thus forced to create scenes instead of seeking them out. (That’s a reference to the NEW RAVE REVOLUTION (that will not be televised because it means nothing) that would be dead had NME sugar-daddys IPC media not keep throwing fivers in the vain hope of sparking off the Libertines NEW ROCK REVOLUTION MARK II)
So we come to Noah and the Whale. Indie-Folk the distinctly English way - a recognisable Englishness that you probably won’t see on the television - but they sound like the people I know - or want to know. And not in the “yeh! People who sing like we talk and live in run down urban places and go to dance clubs and Look good on the Dancefloor“. Rock + Daggers pulls out a violin to give us the essential folk lift and thus give the artists the element of surprise. You can just see a packed room of 50 people dancing with their head down to the floor or up to stars. And that’s what I want: music that works on a small scale, music that flaps about the room… finds a resting place… and offers you some advice, a story of sunshine shining on your shoes and the quintessential snare drum-age.
MP3: Noah and The Whale - Rock And Daggers
PLAY:
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Happy New Year O’blog Reader! There is much good stuff to come this year… there’s nothing but green lights from here….
Yay! More props for Noah and his Whale! Hmmm… that compilation CD. That would be good…
The New Rave Revolution can eat my old socks. Rave was sh*te enough the first time round, quite frankly.
This lot, on the other hand, are excellent.
Saw them the other day in Oxford, they were great.
I have been playing these chaps’ songs every day this week, and have been introduced to Emmy’s music as a result of them, having played with them on Sunday with my band Stornoway. They came all the way to Oxford, and knocked the old socks (see Matthew’s comment above) off of the old punters in our hometown. Their set was a pastiche of incredible rhyming ideas and imagery played with a guitar that makes the guy look like Robert Johnson, all set against a backdrop of absolute silence from the audience… we’d never seen anything as delicate as this music before. This scene is where It’s at, whatever It is.