This London duo are about as hard to pigeon hole as we imagine it is to physically squeeze an actual pigeon into an actual hole. As you know, The Recommender usually deals in emerging music, so you may be wondering why they’re appearing on here, seeing as they’ve been floating around since 2009. That’s understandable, but in all honesty they’re one of those bands that feels like they’ve established a foothold on the underground music scene without actually releasing much original work to date.
One search on the Hype Machine and you’ll see a reasonably lengthy list of entries, so supportive are blogs, but in fairness most of them are remixes of them or by them. A quick scan through the list will reveal a prolific but always excellent re-work of bands such as Everything Everything, Memory Tapes, Alice Gold and Filthy Dukes, among others, as they introduce their trademark late night atmospherics to the more traditional commercial market. It’s a lesson in building a following via a remix. However, the reality remains that the duo have only officially delivered one single before now, which was their Sometimes It Kills release, from back in February, on Royal Rhino Flying Records. It’s only this week that we’ve received the follow up, Sirens (Novocaine).
This new single, which is out on October 17th on Deadly People Recordings, is our favourite track to date from the pair. Joni Juden brings it thumping and slapping into view like a pissed off Destiny’s Child tune, before Sara Atalar’s vocals sweep in like a broad of silk. Tweaks and synths give it a mixture of doom and stuttering interruptions that counter the otherwise obvious pop tune that it is, in the same juxtapositioning style that Sleigh Bells are known for. The drums totally own the song, darting around like a paranoid drum machine, switching in a blink from afro hip hop to a pace more akin to the kind of raving house tip-tap build up we used to hear in the 90s. It’s a fizzing second single, marking them out as a proper deadly dance act, taking us one more step closer to the full début album, which is due in 2012.
Other recent available demos, such as Everything Awaits, which will draw further comparisons to Crystal Fighters (a band they’re supporting at an upcoming live show – see below). Like that band they are once again found harnessing 90s dance music, but they also avoid the obvious soulless pitfalls that cleared many of that era’s dancefloors and instead mix in a classy variety of breaks and more glacial vocals that lift the song skywards. The other demo, Turn 2 U, has clearer vocals, but darker synth chords. We can easily imagine her vocals could have been utilised in something more akin to commercial house, (think Freemasons, Planet Funk et al), but thankfully she simply takes that chart-friendly corner of dance’s euphoric escapism into something altogether more palatable, alternative and atmospheric.
We imagine they’ll be quite the powerhouse live, as the available imagery on their Blogspots and Tumblrs has been just as arresting as the moving music, clearly showing us a sense of design alongside their clever productions. We list below a run of live shows they’re planning for throughout the late Autumn, in support of the single. Although they sound like a billion fragments of different dance and pop genres, making it virtually impossible to give them a correct shelf – something we’re positive they’re more than happy with – where they can be truly satisfied is their ability to make every shard like a well-crafted snowflake, all ice cold and beautiful. Now that’s something well worth catching if you can. (MB)
15/9 Manchester, Sound control w/Crystal Fighters
19/10 Nottingham The Bodega
20/10 Oxford, The Jericho
21/10 Cardiff, SWN Festival
22/10 Leeds, Nation of Shopkeepers
26/10 Sheffield, Forum
03/11 London, CAMP
11/11 Liverpool, Music Week festival
12/11 Glasgow, Death Disco
VISIONS OF TREES – SIRENS (NOVOCAINE)
VISIONS OF TREES – CULT OF COBRAS
VISIONS OF TREES – THE SCIENCE OF HATE
