‘F’ is for Fractures

It’s fascinating when you think about it, how we react to a song is very much dependant on the circumstances under which it is heard for the first time, or the mood we are in, in some cases it could be our internal chemical balance, enhanced or otherwise, that makes you think something is amazing. Similarly, the way music can affect you, the change it can impact upon your mood and even your outlook on a situation never ceases to amaze us. In particular, it’s the way music has of seeping into your soul and triggering emotion and memories, you develop associations that last forever and that can be sparked quickly and completely.

So it was with the music of Australian Mark Zito, or Fractures as he is now known as. Specifically his latest work, a swooshing, otherworldly cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” which instantly hit the spot in our brain reserved for ‘ahhhh shit, this is awesome’ moments. As we’ve mentioned before, “Space Oddity” has a very special and important place in our music loving heart, so to hear it remixed in such a unique and beautiful way tickled us way more than pink. It has a suitably retro, 70’s sci-fi flick feel to it while still retaining enough Bowie-ness within this near complete re-working to be instantly recognisable. It’s probably one of the best remixes we’ve heard (and it’s available to download for free as well).

We shouldn’t be surprised though as Fractures is a project of distinguished quality. Dreamy electro soundscapes are complemented with soft, soulful falsetto vocals that, on “Twisted” in particular, ring out with a richness that would stop a rhino’s heart. Elsewhere, on “Embers” for example, they near whisper along delicately before building into big and evocative crescendos of atmospheric folksiness. It sounds like an odd mix but by God it works.

The sounds are patient, controlled but not angular; they melt and float into one another as with the likes of London Grammar and evoke dark atmospherics like Paper Crows. It’s not just the gloriousness of this electronic instrumentation that has us so excited either; it is the combination, the perfect symbiotic combination, with the dusk-like lyrics and vocals. Like Radiohead and even Kindness to a degree, Fractures blends light and dark, retro and futuristic, indie and electro and he does so to a dazzling degree.

Depending on your mood when you listen, his music could balm an enraged soul or stir a lethargic one to action; it could warm a frozen heart or cause ice tears to run down your face. Whichever emotion it sparks, whichever feeling or memory comes cascading to the forefront of your mind, you will be left in no doubt that this is music of genuine quality and deserved of repeated listens and undivided attention.

Fractures is currently prepping his debut EP to be released mid-2013.

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‘G’ is for Garnets

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while may well recall an interview that we did with The Guardian for their Blog Jam series. In it we identified Leeds based noodlers, Garnets as our soon-to-be-inducted ‘G’ band.

That was in May last year. A lot has changed since then, but our desire to feature Garnets as an Alphabet Band never abated so we are delighted that, after the best part of a year, we are finally welcoming them to the family.

When we say a lot has changed, we mean for Garnets. They first came to our attention when our friends over at Rarity In form featured their beautiful, intricate and atmospheric track, “Dance Of The Chloroplasts”. We were captivated by the minimalist and haunting melodies, the sparseness and use of wide open spaces as well as pin-prick precise electronic sounds.

We soon engaged the band in conversation by email but while we spoke on and off for the remainder of the year, publically they dropped off the radar. Newly relocated to London from Leeds and making music once again, we grabbed a cuppa with Sam and Ed recently and the first thing we wanted to know was, where have they been?

”We graduated” says Sam. It’s a short answer but one that actually explains an awful lot. The band as was in Leeds has largely relocated to disparate corners of the country and that has made getting together quite difficult. The band as it was hasn’t got together and rehearsed for some time but Sam himself has shipped all his recording equipment down to London and is currently ”making up for lost time”. The band hasn’t broken up but, as Ed explains, if they waited for everyone to be available at the same time, they could end up waiting forever. ”It’s been pretty much impossible with everyone in different places”, he admits. ”If we hadn’t started doing stuff just as a two piece, there’s no telling how long it would have been before we started recording stuff again”.

Sam has not stopped writing mind you and the band recently released “Fruit”, a super chilled piece of looped electronica with a graceful, music box piano outro as their debut, you can actually buy this, single. While Sam is keen to stress that they are seeing how it goes, there are a few more tracks waiting in the wings to be released, maybe an EP in the not too distant future as well. Good news for those amongst us who were lamenting their apparent disappearance.

Having previously recorded with the wider band, tracks are now written and produced in Sam’s home studio, aka his bedroom. “I don’t have much to go with really, equipment wise”, he admits. ”One good microphone and whatever I have to hand really”, which is quite impressive when you consider the fragility and intricacy of the tunes they are producing. Not that having more or better kit would make a difference, ”I like limitations, I think it adds a lot” says Sam and Ed agrees, ”I think it forces you to work harder on the intricacies”, he says. ”I think if you’ve got too much you become lazy”. ”It doesn’t have any character” adds Sam.

Their influences are not quite as surprising, Sigor Rós and James Blake for example, though Sam is also a big Springsteen fan, which doesn’t come through quite as strongly in their sound but may well translate to live performances. Perhaps jeans and white t-shirts could be the band uniform. Joking aside, live is not really on their mind at the moment, the focus is on writing and recording and what happens next. It feels like they are almost starting from scratch, they say. There is, says Ed, a bit of a launch pad with their previous releases and the fanbase they had already built up but with the wider band spread out around the country it is Sam and Ed who are taking it forward and what happens next is very much dependant on how they and the others feel.

One thing is clear though, it is great to have them back recording and releasing music again, and with more tracks on the way they should be able to take off from that launch pad and hit new heights. It may have taken us nearly a year to welcome them to the Alphabet Bands family, but it was certainly worth the wait.

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‘V’ is for The Vestals

In ancient Roman religion, the Vestals or Vestal Virgins, were priestesses, goddesses whose College of the Vestals was regarded as fundamental to the security and success of Rome. The Vestals were freed of the usual social obligations in order to devote themselves to the study and correct observance of state rituals that were off-limits to the male colleges of priests.

We may not be in ancient Rome but the world has once again been blessed with the presence of The Vestals, albeit in the form of a five-piece indie-pop combo from South Wales. Once again though, they appear to have been freed of the usual social obligations of ceding to the constant demand for information and facts, devoting themselves instead to the music and letting that speak for the band.

So steadfast are they in this belief that singer Adam (no surname, ” you don’t need to know that, you just need to hear the songs” he says) will not yield, even during a face to face interview. ” We are not like, deliberately mysterious, but we just like to let the music do the talking” he reiterates when we sit down following a storming set at the Norwich Arts Centre. The band has been on tour with Pure Love and Turbogeist and, though you would presume they’d attract a very different kind of audience, their blend of energetic indie-pop has been going down a storm with Adam a young Morrissey/Brett Anderson hybrid at the front of the stage.

Even during a live performance they divulge no secrets to the crowd, performing in half light that makes it difficult to determine what they look like. It is the promo shot at the top of this article, with blurred faces, in real life. Aside from Adam, who will man the merch stand after the set, the band is able to walk by unnoticed. ”We are just comfortable playing with those kind of lights. We think they look nice. I don’t think it’s that important to see us; just the songs. The songs you can hear. It’s just the way we like it”.

What we do know is that the guys have been together since at least 2011 when they originally released “Perfect Pain” online, but they ”took it down after a week because it was moving a bit too fast for us”. Having come together originally just to record that song they have reworked it for release on 7” through Killing Moon Records as a double A-side with the equally wonderful “Seventeen”. We know too that the guys have been in bands before and, after a few shows last year, mostly around Wales, this is their first tour as The Vestals.

Live they perform with a controlled energy, you can’t quite tell if some of their rocking out moments have been coordinated or if they are occurring naturally but there is no question over the quality of their music. They specialise in a blend of melancholic yet rocking pop music, all infectious hooks and jump-along choruses that should be blasting out of bedrooms the length and breadth of the country.

That surely is in their future, a future they say they are happy to let come to them. “We spent last year recording a lot of music, so there is a lot of material ready to go” Adam tell us. ”We just take each step as it comes really so we are really excited for this single and then I am sure we will release more songs and play more shows, that’s the plan”. Which of course just adds to the mystery and intrigue. We don’t need to know about the future, just enjoy the music we have at the present, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Whatever the future holds, there certainly seems to be big things ahead for the band. Time will tell if they go down in legend like their ancient Roman namesakes.

The “Perfect Pain”/”Seventeen” AA side single is out now via Killing Moon Records and is available both digitally and on 7” vinyl.

Stalk The Vestals: Facebook / Twitter / Website / SoundCloud

‘W’ is for The White Bicycles

Googling Falmouth University may not be top on most music bloggers list of evening activities, but here are Alphabet Bands, we dare to be different. It turns out, from a very limited perusal of Wikipedia, that the notable alumni of Falmouth includes a lot of actors and artists we have never heard of (and a couple we have), someone who professes to be a ‘cyborg activist and artist’, and one musician, Ben Howard. Ben Howard, who, as you know, signed to Island Records, a label famous for many things including being the home of esteemed folk singer, Nick Drake. Why oh why, we hear you ask, is any of this important? Well, forgive us for coming across like a low rent Kevin Bacon, but it is all due to the serendipitous connections of the world.

Today we welcome The White Bicycles to our family of wonderful Alphabet Bands, a band which was born into this world at Falmouth University when songwriter Matthew Howes met guitarist Ryan Nolan. Not only that, but the name comes from the memoirs of producer Joe Boyd, who famously brought songwriter Nick Drake to light. It’s all connected see?

They pitch themselves as being ”a welcome antidote for the haste of modern living” and they are not far wrong. Listening to their latest single, “Courtesy”, in particular makes you feel calm and in control. It moves along at a gentle pace; like you are on an amble through the countryside for a few moments of relaxed tranquillity, looking out from atop a hill as the world whizzes by below you. They use space as an instrument, allowing notes, melodies, lyrics to breathe and linger.

Surprisingly they have labelled their music on SoundCloud as ‘shoegaze’; it is not. It is quite the opposite in fact. It is lift-your-head-up-from-the-rat-race-and-look-around music, take-a-moment-to-appreciate-the-world music. It’s folk, but it isn’t. It’s pop, but it isn’t. It is lo-fi indie, but it isn’t. Its soundscapes are contemplative; they are considered, thoughtful and melancholic. “Wristwatch” is intimate, like walking through the snowfall in moonlight as the rest of the world sleeps while “Empty Frames” is a secret, a whisper The White Bicycles share only with the listener.

It may feel that this contradictory non-style of theirs is an affectation, it isn’t. There is not a bit of pretention in the music of The White Bicycles; it is just simple, poetic and beautiful. We recommend that you find somewhere quiet, shut yourself away from the world for a few minutes, turn down the lights if you can and just listen. Let life carry on outside as you relax with this enthralling new band.

All three of The White Bicycles tracks can be downloaded for free from their SoundCloud profile, and gig details can be found on their Facebook page.

Stalk The White Bicycles: Facebook / SoundCloud / Twitter / YouTube / email

Watch: Polaroid 85 – “Freefall” Live Studio Session

We’ve been banging on about hearing some new music from Polaroid 85 for what feels like an absolute age and finally (yes!) we have some to share with you.

A couple of weeks back we shared the first of a number of specially recorded live studio sessions by the band, and hypothesised that the final video in the series would be a big reveal of new music. We are certainly no Poirot and they’ve only gone and made us look a bit daft by releasing a brand new track for their second video. We’d shake our fist and act all indignant but frankly we are far too busy getting our blissful groove on.

“Freefall” is a little bit busier than we have been used to from Polaroid 85 but it still features the collective’s exquisite and intricate layered sounds, as well as some tight-as-you-like live drumming. That’s one thing we love about these guys, the way they blend a lot of live instrumentalism with a little bit of programming and digital chicanery. As opposed to lot a of artists who go the other way these days. Here the process is used to create a delicious musical sandwich; the filling of vibrant beats is surrounded by (below) deep strings and synths that slowly drive forward, and (above) Neeta’s doleful vocals which float and glide atop the frenetic energies below.

It is, as we have come to expect, a fantastic track and one that bodes very well indeed for the new (as yet unannounced, untitled, unlikely to be released in time to sate our gargantuan appetite) EP.

Take a listen below, go download the “Fuzzy Mornings” EP for free (if you haven’t already), and hit them up on a multitude of social media platforms to tell them how great it is.

Read More: ’P’ is for Polaroid 85.

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