/I don’t want to cry my whole life through/I want to do some laughing too/
Got your attention? This is the innate attention grabbing nature of Girls, the San Fransisco duo who are as eye-catching as there are lyrically poignant. Looking not too dissimilar to an American alternative of David Walliams and Matt Lucas, had they of entered some sort of surreal charity shopping and hair backcombing phase.
Yet, Girls are inarguably very talented.
With their debut single “Hellhole Ratrace” crying out to listeners for some TLC and revealing the very human reluctance to get stuck in the monotony of a predictable life, Girls reach out to listeners and reveal a sort of vulnerability that is unavoidably endearing. Whilst, at just under seven minutes in length, the track does lean to the more self-indulgent and unneccessarily long, the ecentric nature of the band in many ways makes it seem more of a showpiece for their creativity rather than evidence of an inability to know when to shut up.
Sounding not unlike the new work of The Horrors with the similarities to Faris’ vocals, entwined with the sort of psychedelic noise rock that The Pixies enhanced endlessly, Girls appear to be the ballsy type of different that should be welcomed with open arms.
Touring with Los Campesinos! and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart throughout the Summer, keep an ear out for their debut LP later this year as if it’s as versatile and complex as this single; 2010 looks set to be a very exciting year for the eclectic duo and their fans.
It’s a sort of understated instrumental frenzy that combines a violin, a mandolin, a glock, a sax, a trumpet, a banjo alongside, of course, the conventional instruments in a way which immediately emulates the drama and beauty of the likes of Arcade Fire and leaves the listener with no misunderstanding about how truly talented the five-piece really are.
This, underpinned with Swedish frontman Simon Balthazar’s vocals sounding like a more sedate and peaceful Win Butler (of Arcade Fire) as he cries out /Why cant they just think like us?/ in a way that is refreshingly simple yet profound. The innate beauty of Balthazar’s delicate vocals are the perfect addition to Cathy Lucas’ faultless violin playing and the lyrics which echo such honesty and a dark rawness that is reminiscent of the likes of Cold War Kids or The Maccabees.
With a headlining tour in June and having already played at SXSW and The Great Escape, Fanfarlo have already began building up a solid fanbase since forming in 2006, no doubt all equally mesmerised by the enchanting layered production of their music.
Fanfarlo has the intoxicating ability to use their charming vocals, precise lyrics and talented instrumental formation to enter the listener and accommodate their desire to be distracted and escape from reality for forty minutes; something that friends of Fanfarlo, the spine-chilling Sigur Ros and Canadian talents, Wintersleep, are similarly renowned for.
Whether it’s the Swedish romanticism, or the natural and low key dramatics, Fanfarlo have an innate beauty that is almost guaranteed to sweep you off your feet with tracks like ‘Comet’ and “Drowning Man”. Step into Fanfarlo’s world, it’s entirely worth it.
Twenty-year-old Matt Abbott makes up one half of the Motown influenced spoken word duo, Skint and Demoralised, and despite his newly acquired acclaim and whirlwind two months – Abbott’s young feet seem pretty firmly fixed to the ground.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Skint and Demoralised (that’s anyone who works during Edith Boman’s daily Radio One stint), Matt Abbott was fresh from the monotony of education in his hometown of Wakefield, Yorkshire, when he started looking to poetry as a way of finding his footing in a dog-eat-dog music industry (“I’m not a singer and I cant play an instrument so I didn’t have any natural path music”)but before long he found his platform alongside producer MiNI dOG:
“I was really inspired by John Cooper Clarke who used to do spoken word before bands like The Fall and The Sex Pistols. I always loved words and language but as a teenager it’s not cool to say you like poetry so I started doing spoken word in pubs and clubs.
“It was just an excuse not to do college work really but I would record it on my mobile and then upload them onto MySpace so people could hear them. Then someone got in touch with me about putting my poetry over music tracks and I thought it’d be a bit of a novelty and agreed. Within a month we had five songs, without even having met, but when we did, we just clicked and after two years, we’re still trying!”
And the trying appears to be paying off with new single ‘Red Lipstick’ out 13th July and already earning the duo a place at some of the most prestigious music festivals around the country over the next few months. Their debut is a three minute ode to the girl next door revealing Abbott’s college penchant for more down to earth girls who apparently like no more than ‘red lipstick, fish and chips, orange juice and trips to the sea-side.’
Whilst this fresh pop track will likely win them some criticism from more ‘serious’ Indie-meets-spoken word fans when compared to the likes of The Streets and Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Matt’s words plummet to further depths than the quirky debut would perhaps lead you to believe; with one poem specifically targeting the errors of the BNP, warranting him a place on stage at Love Music Hate Racism:
“The racism issue has always been important to me and obviously the BNP were elected in Yorkshire and I’m a Yorkshire lad so hopefully I’ve put that point out there. Love Music Hate Racism is important and a good cause because kids don’t listen to politicians and need younger people. Racism is a social and moral issue. I can’t change the world but if I can help, I will do.”
Barely out of his teens, Matt seems to have had quite a impact with his profound words establishing him a firm following, something demonstrated with Skint and Demoralised playing their first headline tour in February earlier this year and all their plans to help them pass the time throughout the usually dubious weather of the English Summer:
We’re doing Bestival, Reading Festival, Wireless, Latitude and now Glastonbury and we’ve got the release of ‘Red Lipstick’. We’ve also got another single coming out in September, a tour around then and then the album will be out 15th October. We’re just taking it one step at a time though. We don’t want to disappear after one single and an album.”
Hopes are also high for their debut album, fusing a sort of 60s soul with Matt’s Mike Skinner-esque observations and his innate balls to be different and veer away from the mainstream:
“Our music is largely inspired by Motown and Northern Soul but we didn’t want to do an Amy Winehouse rip off but we used her band to get that real authentic sound and not a sort of Mark Ronson soul-by-numbers.
“Although a lot of people, like John McClure in Reverend and the Makers, don’t put their spoken word stuff on their albums - we’ve done spoken word interludes on the album. Not like Eminem, but like spoken word with sound affects. It’s a bit weird…but we quite like that it’s a bit strange because it shows people what it is that we do.”
As the interview with Matt comes to an end, three things resound; (1) he chats faster than I thought was humanly possible when his bubbly nature and excitement for his career take over his speech, (2) He does do mainstream, caving to Twitter (and confessing that he is ‘a bit sad’ and does all his updates in rhyme) and (3) Skint and Demoralised are really quite a refreshing addition to the music scene and clearly loving every minute.
As charming and she is enchanting, Soviet born, Regina Spektor, is back with her fifth album “Far”, and true to form, it’s spine-chillingly beautiful.
Throughout the sixteen tracks, Regina characteristically playfully, but precisely, exudes all the words you wish you could have been the first person to articulate, if you’d have realised you felt it. She also maintains her balance of maturity, approaching issues of God and family life, but combining it with a sort of endearing naivety as she effortlessly breaks down even the most complex of emotions into a simplified, often tongue-in-cheek, lyric.
Regina’s classical influences that include the likes of Mozart and Chopin, combine with a plethora of seemingly separate genres from hip hop to jazz, to create the perfect foundation for the new album. Tracks like ‘Folding Chair’ demonstrate Regina’s prowess as a pianist as lyrics like / “I’ve got a perfect body because my eyelashes catch my sweat, yes they do/ playfully bounce along staccato piano chords. That is, before she shows off her trademark quirkiness bursting into an impromptu dolphin impression
Whilst, as with ‘Begin to Hope’ in comparison to it’s predecessor ‘Soviet Kitch’, Regina’s new album demonstrates a more produced and polished finish than her initial fans are perhaps used to. Yet, when the end product still conjures the goose bumps we come to expect of Regina’s beautiful voice juxtaposed by her Bronx twang and storybook-like lyrics that echo her influence on successors such as Kate Nash, it becomes hard to fault.
Forget what the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl tell us every Christmas, the fairytale in New York is Regina Spektor, and it’s bloody good to have her back.
“Last night I got struck by lightening/ While I was trying to swim” From the very first line of the Nottingham five-piece’s debut album, the automatic spine chills that become rather commonplace as the album progresses, are teased through the listener. Enhanced with John Sampson’s gentle vocals sounding like a darker Jack Steadman (of Bombay Bicycle Club) amidst the beautiful eeriness of the likes of The Postal Service; that is, before the first track erupts into a less impressive and more basic style of rock/electronica that also appears to characterise the album.
Yet, to the band’s credit, SWIMMInG don’t combine the two genres in the same way that bands like Head Automatica do so in a bid to reach out to the popular mainstream. Their penchant for the dark static ambience that lies like a shadow over the album’s nine tracks, quite effortlessly exudes the bands influences that include Sonic Youth, Animal Collective and Pixies.
Releasing ‘The Fireflow Trade’ on their own record label, Colourschool, in many ways the band’s album showcases its own innovative brand of post-rock noise that rivals the likes of Do Say Make Think. However, with at times rather monotonous lyrics, which includes 16 consecutive repetitions of the line /Set ablaze a fire/ in the final track and a collage of uninspiring drones, in other ways the album appears to lack the charm and subtly that the opening 30 seconds emptily promises.
However, as a debut album, SWIMMInG has seemingly established a sort of variety throughout the tracks that serves as a platform to show their diverse capabilities and, as with all debuts, will provide an unprecedented opportunity for them to grow as a band and perhaps establish a more certain sound.
