Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Midweek marvellousness: The Hics, Owl & Mouse, Acollective, Laura Groves

The Hics - All We'll Know

These South Londoners were taught music by Dave Okoma of The Invisible, it says here, which accounts for the urgency and the multilayering of this take on post-XX *and* post-Burial downtempo electronics that seem completely filled out despite being carefully sparse underneath, a real 3am rainy vibe with male-female harmony vocals seeming octaves apart. We might be quite late to this particular bandwagon, they're already XOYO size in London (June 24th), have Zane Lowe and Gilles Peterson full support and appear somewhere within Grand Theft Auto's myriad radio stations, but it's still the off-centre slipperiness that intrigues.




Owl & Mouse - Don't Read The Classics

Yes, a ukelele as lead instrument. Sit down. In the couple of years since Hannah Botting's first EP under the name she's formed a band around her but kept her pureish vocal and yearning writing nature intact. This almost too delicately poised self-examination in the face of misplaced trust is from Somewhere To Go EP, out via Fika Recordings on 23rd June.




Acollective - OTM

Almost certainly not what you'd expect from a Tel Aviv baned who sharpened their craft playing in the streets and have just signed to Alcopop! Recordings. In fact, it's hard to pin down exactly what they are, as a Massive Attack-recalling intro explodes into technicolour, frenzied life instead, still based on foreboding beats and sentiments but at the top line unsettled in a different, more Ritalin-based way, making previous Flaming Lips supports more explicable. Second album Pangaea is out July 7th, and if you're off to Truck in July they're opening the main stage on the Friday.




Laura Groves - Friday

After piecemeal released with Nautic and her own EP last year the former Blue Roses has denoted this as a home recorded demo but it sounds in its gorgeous arrangement like it's there already, liquid piano and multitracked airy vocals suggesting Laura Nyro.

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