explosions in the night

Before I get on with chatting up little bands I’ve found myself loving later in the week, I thought I’d take a minute to talk about a few of the buzz bands people are talking about for this year. The term buzz band puts off a lot of people I find, especially when they’re lumped into “movements” (lets not even talk about “Thamesbeat”) this year is no different with electro-pop being all the rage. However we’re not talking Erol Alkan style beats (in my opinion his latest effort on the Late of The Pier album blows) we’re talking La Roux, Little Boots and Passion Pit. A good friend of mine saw a young, young man by the name of Archeo Price play a while ago at a YoYo, slick, so very eighties and by my estimations totally loaded. Dude had better packaging for his demo than most major label bands have for their priority releases. In any case I found his music to be pretty rad, so if you like Prince, MJ and all that fun stuff I encourage fitting him in between ‘Part Time Lover’ and- deep breath- MGMT.

I personally think La Roux and Little Boots both suck, so can’t really go into more detail about their music other than to say if you thought Adele or Katy Perry were overexposed last year you will be sick of the sight of those two ladies by this years end. I like the eighties, but really I can only take a little bit of regurgitation at a time.

Disregarding eighties musical bulimia for a moment, lets talk Passion Pit. I really quite enjoy them on record, and of all the Neon Gold stuff, they’re clearly the ones that match what’s going on right now best. They find a way of giving beats some sort of heart, which is pretty rare. Most bands of this musical ilk tend to go all Klaxons on us and talk about rainbows, fireworks, k-holes and other narcotic themed oddities, but the tale of Passion Pit is quite sweet and that remains at the heart of what they do. The story goes that the bands front man recorded a mix cd for his girlfriend as a gift (take THAT Bon Iver), which then became their much talked about EP, featuring breakout track 'Sleepyhead'. This EP then circulated beyond their Berklee-Emerson-Boston crowd to Goodweatherforairstrikes wunderkid Derek Davies who then heard and hailed it. Many expensive meals and drinks with labels later, here they are, on our shores ready for adoration. The blogosphere seems to have a massive crush on them, and while having seen them play one of their first shows in New York back in August 2008 not being too impressed, I have a fair amount of hope that on their current UK endeavour with Brooklyn’s Bear Hands (who are a pretty super indie rock band) they will have improved, haven taken mighty strides towards having a real live presence. Fingers crossed for the magic to permeate the world outside of the internet, I’m hoping for something special…rest assured though that much like the Shins before them they are destined to be every college kids favourite band to name drop, every indie soundtracks essential and the sample to many an advert in times soon to come. Excited? Kel would say "mmmhmmm".