This South-Eastern bright and chirpy, indie-pop music washes straight through you. It knocks you under the waves with a power rarely experienced on these shores. And as you hit the water your legs struggle to keep you afloat and you start seeing strange shapes, colours, bubbles and blinding light above (or below) as you balance between sand and sky. This is what The Joy Formidable manage: a balance a dream-like disorientation with the measured chaos of pop music.
Screaming Tea Party charm, swoop and generally be very bird-of-prey like, hovering above watching everyone else struggle to string a few notes together down below, effortless going down for the kill. This London three piece sound familiar, but with added lo-fidelty venom, a few more high notes and a wider range they sound different to the last deja-vu. They’ll seek out and take you down with an impatience and to stick-it-to-you-ness. Run breathless, but they’ll catch you.
*****
Go listen to slower, but still awesome “Cracked up Dietrich” @ myspace. And buy their stuff @ Stolen.
Last year I wrote about Mr Mark “Sleeping States’ ” release on The Caspian Label’s 7″ series. Back then I tried to describe “Tremoring psch-folk laying down for a moment, taking a brief pause, after some frantic energy exertion, perhaps awaking after a long nights sleep.” This is much more impatient, but it is crafted with the same recognisable, signature grain. The original is fast and direct: this is much more sideways looking and impromptu.
This track is half of a 7″ to be released by Felt Tip Records. The other half is by Fanfarlo: it’s sprite and chirpy, with this London 6-piece slipping and sliding their way up to a bigger sound without falling flat on their faces and losing all momentum.
Upcoming tour dates featuring Fanfarlo AND Sleeping States
29th Feb Brighton @ Hope
1st March Bristol @ Louisiana
2nd March Nottingham @ Bodega
Fanfarlo are playing SXSW - go check them out.
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Said the Gramophone, one of my favourite mp3 blogs, are gradually announced the winners of their video competion: readers were encouraged to make . Check out the awesome runners up #1and #2: Winners are announced on Monday.
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I didn’t win the NME award I’m afraid: I’m so sorry to let you all down, let’s hope we can all pick ourselves up and get on with our lives. In much more important news: cute hedgehog really enjoying fruit on youtube.
Mr Jeremy Warmsley (and the mysterious Fay Buzzard) has created a web-tv show featuring live performances by a lot of cutting-edge British indie-pop-stars. You can watch the show on youtube, but here’s an mp3-flavoured-taster before diving into the main course: some deliciously lo-fi mp3s I’ve been sent to share with you.
Rather serene but suitably frayed folk music from the quick-sung Laura Groves, likely borned from the same stock as Ms Joanna Newsom, minus the harp. NME have recently bunched some of the musicians that have played this show “Anti-LDN” trying to hint at the anti-folk-prototypes that so many of these bands have been lumped in with.
But music like this hardly spends it time being anti-anything. Laura and the regularly featured Emmy the Great below are both positive without any sort of twee-abandon of rationality: they sing of failings, and sometimes loss but it opens your eyes, and you don’t turn away: perfect for television I guess, and ideally suited to this sort of production: embracing honest and soulful songwriting. Well done Jeremy. You win. As for Anti-LDN - I don’t see it catching on: I bet these artists love London a little too much to rise up against it.
They swagger through door. People look up, they wink a collective wink. The crowd parts. They think it’s so simple they’ve been up there for so long - they deserve it. Indie-Rock presented by the consistently-on-fire Stolen Records. Let’s Wrestle don’t just spin around in pointless chorus-led circles in their English urban sprawl - they float, follow the ley-lines and probably don’t care for dirty-dancefloors: this sounds so much more free. Triple filtered, triple strength.
"...Afrobeat has gone all desert-storm, with instrumental precision: an assault of funk and drum... the sandstorm churned up behind it betrays kilowatts of energy and a solar rhythm" [11th May: more] | [Photo credit]
"It’s fresh and exciting in a way that doesn’t sound bedroom produced, ill-considered or lost on a journey to nowhere and back. It’s thoughtful and soulful, and there’s not much better to prepare you for a night of excitement, fireworks and bonfires than a some low-key electronica."
[5th November 2007: more]
