Tag Archive for "Bat For Lashes"

DEATH RATTLE

There’s an enormous stack of electronic pop duos around. We get emailed a new one every week it seems, but few make the grade. You can take Eurythmics as the starting point and meander through various successful reincarnations ever since, but it’s an understatement to say that most miss the standards set by Lennox and Stewart some thirty years ago. So what is considered a good and bad standard? What is it that lifts something from just being that pretty fronting female vocalist and that (usually pretty ugly) silent guy and his computer/keyboard stood behind her, up to something that has the legs to last that bit longer? In today’s world, the computer can do so much that as long as you have a good female singer you can create almost anything, yet so many fall into the trap of cliches. Today’s recommendation meander through that same cliche minefield, but they successfully get through it with both legs in tact.

Welcome to the duo, Death Rattle. Firstly, we can congratulate them on selecting a brilliant name, but frankly – to paraphrase Shakespeare - a rose by any other name would still sound as sweet. We can confidently inform you that this duo are the real deal. They have received coverage from many serious corners of the online music press, including NME.com, Line Of Best Fit and The405, as well as several other music blogs in recent months, following the release of their debut EP, HE & I. This has lead to the buzzing Bristol label, Fear of Fiction, including them on their recent release, a limited edition run of 100 CDs, complete with screen printed artwork, which they delivered especially for the recent Record Store Day.

Death Rattle are the duo, Chris and Helen Hamilton, with the latter providing the kind of vocals that are equal parts warning and welcome. There’s a threat to their music throughout, but it’s the kind of danger that attracts as much as it cautions. Imagine for a moment if the Swedish duo, The Knife, had been busy having bastard children with some of your favourite artists. Hit in waiting, The Blows, sounds like the bastard child of The Knife and Austra, whereas the tunes, White Ropes or Do As You Please, sound like the offspring they’d had after a one night stand with Bat For Lashes. The tracks, The Dig and Fortress, have the kind of solitary introspection once found when Massive Attack were depressed. The list of comparisons is like an evening stroll through the dark woods of all the best ominous pop of the last 20 years.

This is serious stuff and should come with an over 18 age restriction, such is their towering, cinematic sound; children simply couldn’t handle this without it purveying their nightmares. They may well be just another boy/girl duo making brooding electronic pop music, but the scale of what they produce with a keyboard and computer is astonishing, elevated to the stratosphere by Helen’s arresting vocals. Their witchcraft is on a different level. They know exactly which ingredients to stir into their dark potions, with punchy beats introduced to lift the creeping mist and mantras that will hook you like a dependent addict. Few protagonists of this haunting pop music have enough range to break through the depression, but with Death Rattle you get atmosphere AND hooks. When you finally reach tracks such as The Fixer you even get the kind of energy normally associated with Sleigh Bells. The pitch black darkness has never been this packed with monsters before.

The latest single, White Rope arrived earlier this month and the second EP, Fortress, is due for release this week, via the Frontal Noize label. Throughout May they have selected tour dates around Europe, where we can imagine their sound being particularly embraced, before returning to play shows from the north to the south of England. If we can get them into our Great Escape showcase we will. You can download their tunes for free on their Soundcloud, which is both generous and will serve to help crank up their enormous hype. We suggest you head their next if you know what’s good for you, or should that be ‘bad for you’. Electronic duos may arrive as regularly as the midnight hour, but what this duo cleverly recognize is that the truly scary nightmares are also the most memorable. (MB)

DEATH RATTLE – THE BLOWS

DEATH RATTLE – THE DIG

DEATH RATTLE – DO AS YOU PLEASE

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Published: April 30th, 2013
Author: Mike Bradford
Category: The Recommender
Tags: Austra, Bat For Lashes, Death Rattle, Eurythmics, Fear Of Fiction, Frontal Noize, Massive Attack, Sleigh Bells, The Knife

WALL

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The Recommender regularly gets asked if we’ve ever considered setting up a record label. People enquire because plenty of other music blogs and sites have done exactly that, with The Line Of Best Fit‘s label Best Fit Recordings, or Killing Moon Limited‘s own singles label proving to be good examples. The key elements to signing hot new acts is that sites like ours are in a great position for discovering emerging music. If we are first to someone particularly talented then why not sign them up and enjoy what spins off from their meteoric rise to stardom? The truth is there isn’t any real income from selling an unknown artist’s debut single – unless you get particularly lucky – so for the whole it costs rather than makes money. What it successfully does is to raise a site’s profile, or give them access to the world of music production and promotion, but ultimately creating a recording label reflects just how much sites like us adore and supporting emerging artists.

You may know Black Cab Sessions, not only for their remarkably excellent site, in which they film just about any musician, so long as they’re awesome, in the back of their black cabs. Established acts, such as The Flaming Lips to Jack White, to more cutting edge artists, such as Jessie Ware and St Lucia, have all performed in their famous back seat. There are literally dozens of artists that have jammed in their little, cramped black vehicles over recent years. The site grew in popularity not only because of the calibre of established and emerging performers, but the whole thing was delivered so magnificently, with quality filming, a strict no-presenter-just-the-music approach. Lets face it, the idea is so simple and original it has you thinking “why didn’t we think of that!?” as you admire the clips. They even organised a tour in the black cab filming around the major music destinations in the USA, picking key artists and talking heads from a selection of American cities, (even getting some music bloggers in the back of the cab). It was so interesting, relevant and exciting that it felt like the future of music television.

With their ability to uncover and promote exciting new artists the natural step for them was to create a new recording label, and thus BCS Records was born. Their first signing was pointed out to us from Chris at BCS and we instantly fell in love, so we’re proud to present them on The Recommender today. Meet Wall, (real name Lyla Foy). She’s a solo artist from London with stacks of talent and ideas. She writes, records and produces all her own work, although live she sets up alongside Dan Bell and Oli Deakin. Last night saw her debut live performance at The Sebright Arms and, such is the excitement already building for her, it indeed sold out. Black Cab Sessions Records has agreed to sign her for her debut single, Magazine, which will be out on September 3rd as a 7″ and digital release. A debut album is in progress and will be out early next year, although it’s not a secured release through BCS Records quite yet.

Chris told us that, “we were often disovering a lot of new music and talented musicians who would get snapped up from doing a Black Cab Session, so we wanted to find a way to work with the acts in a broader way“. He goes on to say that, “We were waiting for someone to come along who we felt we had to work with and that was Wall“. Their choice is perfect, as Wall demonstrates originality and ideas in much the same way BCS have done over recent years. The debut single is a lesson in how to produce patient, understated pop. The song throbs throughout, with Foy whispering the vocals as if singing the song on the pillow next to yours. Imagine someone Scandinavian, such as IAmAmIWhoAmI‘s Jonna Lee, doing a cover of U2′s Numb and you’ll get some idea of the china aesthetic and minimal layers on offer with this first single. Another track, Over My Head, also has Foy front and centre, always carrying the song with her sublime vocal skills. She masterfully balances a wonderful mixture of vulnerability and strength, reminding us of Bat For Lashes on occasion. One of our favourite songs to date is No Secrets, which will draw comparisons with Kate Bush’s strengths. It’s another slow, patient construction, but the layers with this song seem to pay off more as the tune develops, which we suggest is due to it having a more defined beat.

If they were waiting for the right artist to enter their Black Cab Session then imagine the moment as Wall entered their taxi’s stage (see that session below). Her innocence, the purity of her voice, the maturity of her song craft, it is all remarkable, but perhaps more than any other factor it was the hypnotic nature of her quirky pop songs that hooked them. She writes melodic tunes that demand a paused ten seconds of silence after each one ends, as you wake from the spell. She is absolutely the ideal choice for their new label. Some businesses do lots of little things badly, others concentrate on doing one big thing brilliantly. Well, Black Cab Sessions seem to have done the latter, then repeated it with even more fresh, exciting, big ideas. You simply have to admire Chris and BCS Records for their quality controls and relentless run of good form. If their crew come up with any more original and bright projects, particularly if their selections are this stuffed with potential, then The Recommender won’t be starting its own label, oh no, we will be applying to work for Black Cab Sessions. (MB)