Emerging Fervour

Bob Geldof once said: “I don’t like mondays.” I totally disagree with that, I love mondays. And especially if it’s a monday like this: today Mirrors release their new single “Hide and Seek” and they’re first to answer the brand new interview category “Ten Times Top Five” which comes to you once a month from now on. Mirrors are currently touring Europe with OMD, but frontman James and drummer Josef  took the time to think about their top fives. Check it out, enjoy and have a happy monday!

Top Five records

1. Talking heads – 77
2. Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
3. The Slits – Cut
4. Neu! – ’75
5. Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswald – Recomposed

Top Five songs

1. Lindstrom – Where you go, I go to
2. Danny Elfman – Hitchhikeq
3. Victor Vaughn - Lickupon
4. Pase Rock – I’m So Fucking Disco
5. Cheree – Suicide

Top Five memorable gigs witnessed by Mirrors

1. Joe Strummer on Hastings Pier (before him and the pier died)

When: Sunday 24th October 2010/Doors 7pm

Where: Union Chapel Islington

How much: £12

Featuring: Emily Barker, Jo Bartlett, Alasdair Roberts, Dan Michaelson & the Coastguards, Cathal Coughlan, Cate Le Bon & Robyn Hitchcock

Hosted by: James de Malplaquet (The Miserable Rich)

It is surely fair to say that Love is a journey. From the dizzying exhilaration of first falling in love, through the giddy rollercoaster whirl of even the less rocky relationships, to what can seem like an inevitably lonely conclusion – only to fall anew sometime later. Love is beautiful, brutal, and unapologetic, and it has provided fantastic inspiration for music that can make your heart skip a beat, amplify a love-lorn sigh, or merely soundtrack your tears and kisses while tugging at your heart strings. Perhaps we can all understand how Burt Bacharach must have felt when he wrote ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’ – but we all know we’ll surrender to Love’s silky charms once more.

If Hurts were a product, Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson would be every advertising agency’s dream. Their youtube video for the song “Wonderful Life” was one of last year’s youtube sensations, apart from that you were kept in the dark about the band Hurts. You couldn’t find anything neither on their website informationhurts.com (the name says it all) nor on their myspace site. Almost one and a half year later they finally will release their debut “Happiness” in September. And admittedly the hype was completely justified. It doesn’t matter if you call it Disco Lento or New Romantic, if you compare their sound to Human League or Gazebo, fact is: “Happiness” is a collection of intoxicating but melancholic sophisticated arranged pop ballads. They probably did the right thing and avoided their own hype. Otherwise “Happiness” could have been this kind of album where some mediocre songs accompany one or two great tunes. But I don’t think they couldn’t have done it any better and if you listen to the album, you’ll know what I mean.

Billy Bragg once said: “Don’t let the pressures get you down, keep singing out, keep singing loud”. Of course these words could have been Billy’s own, but to be precise he said it about two years ago on Sam Duckworth’s  second album “Searching For The Hows And Whys” as an interlude and was just quoting the lyrics. But anyway this sentence is characteristic for both, Billy Bragg and Sam Duckworth aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. The half British, half Burmese singer songwriter is well known for his political involvement such as for the “Love Music Hate Racism” campaign or his work for “Jail Guitar Doors”, a project for helping to achieve rehabilitation for prison inmates through music. On his third and self-titled album, his basically acoustic melodies are often influenced by electronic music, hip hop or drum’n’bass and therefore adventurous and somehow exempt from any genre. His songs always have a certain strength and density that is hard to describe. And although his lyrics are never explicit you can always sense the ideas or themes or just the fact that there is a message apart from happiness-sunshine-love topics. So I guess Billy Bragg knew very well why he was quoting Sam’s lyrics.

Before you listen to Denis Jones’ “Red + Yellow =”, limber up. His sound is like beat-boxing battle cry with an electronic tribal dance round a digital bonfire. I dare say this might be the kind of music John Martyn would do nowadays, if he was still alive. Denis Jones’ voice and his self taught guitar play is quite impressing, but it’s absolutely intriguing what he does with a loop station, samplers and effects. It’s like you can watch him constructing his wall of sound, brick by brick until the building is finished and ready for occupancy. “Clap Hands” is one of the best opening tracks, I’ve heard in a long time. “Rage” almost hypnotized me, when I first listened to it and it’s followed by “New Note” and eight minute post-rock influenced piece. The cool jazz trumpet in “Conception, Consumption and Radiation” finally proves that you can’t tie Denis Jones’ music to a particular genre. So, let’s put it this way: he’s a curious mind with a beautiful soulful voice and the right plug-in connections. (release date: 19/09/2010 on Humble Soul)

Here’s a short guide for musical time traveling: buy the Mirrors single “Ways To An End” and a ticket for the upcoming European tour (Mirrors are supporting OMD) and you’ll go directly back to the early 80s. They look and sound like a mixture of Kraftwerk, Depeche Modeand Talking Heads. With other words: they snaffled from the best. The impulsive and dry beats accompanied by classical electronic pop harmonies are the perfect gifts for lead singer James’ extraordinary voice. How they elaborate their obvious musical impact is pretty fascinating, in particular onstage and live. You won’t find just a bunch of hipsters who are surfing the synth-pop remembrance wave, but a band that reflects their musical influences in their own way and thus create something new and exciting. The Brighton based quartet’s debut album is currently being mixed and will be released in early 2011. High expectations are vested, I reckon this debut will be something you won’t miss. Neither in your trusted record store, nor on the dance floor.

10/09/10 Monarch, London

11/11/10 E-Werk, Cologne

The Bee Gees are probably the most famous ones, The White Stripes the most famous fake ones and First Aid Kit the most famous ‘you-tubed’ ones: siblings in music. Berlin based musician Vincenz Kokot and his sister Grenadine are definitely the weirdest ones in the sense of musical siblings, because Vincenz’s sister Grenadine is imaginary. So whatever she is and however she appears, she obviously inspires Vincenz Kokot to write brilliant both fragile and sustainable folk-pop songs. He recently released his second album as “My Sister Grenadine” named “Subtitles And Paper Planes”. The double album is divided in two musical parts: eight rather headstrong acoustic ukulele tracks which often demand absolute attention. The way he creates soundscapes where you have to listen to over and over again to discover the real song and melody, proves that he is a master of his trade. In the second part of the album you’ll find the more ‘catchy’ tunes, but not less extraordinary and beautiful. Altogether a double album full of swell lunacy.