Having been nominated on this week’s BBC Sound Of 2011 poll, the drum & bass and dubstep DJ’s of the moment, Nero, have released a new video. It transports you back to the classic arcade beat-em-up gaming experience, familiar to anyone over 30 years of age.
The video’s idea hovers very closely to that of Tron where the boundaries between the arcade game’s world and the real world become blurred, a theme which seems strange timing, considering the remake of Tron and it’s Daft Punk soundtrack is mid-launch. Why go up against that? Anyway, it’s still bags of fun and the tune the video is for is ace.
The new single, Me and You, with the flip side track, Welcome Reality, is due for release on the More Than A Lot label on January 3rd and should be followed on by their debut LP soon after.
Additionally, the head out on a few dates around the UK. See them at the following places: 16th December, The Second Bridge, Bath / 23rd December, Saint Club, Stratford Upon Avon / 15th January, Barhouse, Essex / 20th January, University of Plymouth. (MB)
We want to talk about vocal harmonies a little bit today, as this new five piece from Oxford have mastered the skill as well as a thousand barber shops. Obvious comparisons to The Beach Boys will fly around, as they combine three or four voices, often at higher pitches, to increase the scale and volume of the harmonies, much in the same extraordinary way Brian Wilson and his boys did back in the 1960s.
The real magic with singing like this is when you reach something that the Mamas & Papas called the ‘third voice’, which is where the combination of two or more singers produce an entirely new vocal sound. Fixers seem to manage this rare skill, as the chorus of voices collect and soar around the room like a flock of birds in unison. It’s beautiful, it’s enchanting and it serves to raise their music above most others.
They pitch their music somewhere between the psychedelic prog-indie of Animal Collective, the melodies and showmanship of MGMT and the wistful Fleet Foxes. Not a bad list when you consider that The Beach Boys really should be thrown into the mix too.
The track, ‘Iron Deer Dream‘, is particularly reminiscent of Animal Collective’s ‘My Girl‘, with it’s hooks and melody, but it builds up before breaking into guitars after a minute of harmony. We imagine it will be utterly mesmerising live as it’s so huge it would be hard to not be knocked over. ‘My Girl‘ was such a huge hit so there’s clearly an appetite for this kind of excellent songsmithery.
There’s two tracks currently available on their Myspace, with the other being ‘Amsterdam‘, which is aiming very high indeed, with it’s prog-rock organs and drums that sound like they’re being played in an empty church and it’s here that the vocals hit their peaks. It really is great to hear music that satisfies the snobby indie intellectual, whilst admitting to being drenched in pop influences.
They made their first appearances towards the end of 2009, arriving in the centre of all the attention currently being focused on Oxford. A&R seem to be hovering around the city like swots to a tutor, as the local scene, which makes it’s way around the blogs under the banner of ‘Blessing Force‘, produce band after band. All of them share a sense of alternative, intellectual music, as witnessed with Trophy Wife, Pet Moon, Jonquil, Chad Valley, among others, in the post-Foals era. Most bands will clearly dislike being grouped into the restrictions of a scene, but with the talent being shown with Fixers their voices will surely be heard above the rest. (MB)
