Picture Book are no strangers to Breaking More Waves, their impeccably produced electronic pop and the tantalising vocal of Greta Svabo Bech managing to easily secure a bit of space in our hearts (and on our blog) whilst making our feet dance deliriously. Whilst many of the tracks we’ve featured in the past have now been taken off-line the gorgeous Sunshine remains and to this two new songs have been added.
Send The Army In is a flamenco-flavoured piece of sunshine electro that paints the world with a bit of colour, whereas as Surrender is a big hands-in-the air club anthem that we can easily, ahem, surrender to. As the cold winter nights wash in, this is music that can take you back to a world of sexy cocktails, dancing on seafront terraces and feeling utterly at one with the world and right now we couldn’t think of anything nicer than that.
Welcome to our new regular Saturday feature titled The Saturday Surf. Every week we listen to a lot of new music. Only a tiny fraction of it makes it onto the blog. The Saturday Surf is a weekly sweep up of some of the best of the rest - a gentle skim of a number of songs that didn’t quite get their own individual post.
For this regular column we’ll never post too many tracks in any one week so as to not take up too much of your time – 5 will be the maximum - and much like the rest of Breaking More Waves the music chosen will not be from any particular genre. So expect our usual mix of folk, electronica, pop, indie, maybe even some hip hop or experimental oddness from time to time.
The only criteria will be that each and every piece of music gets our approval and is 100% amazing. The weekend really does start here.
Next comes something from the opposite end of the musical spectrum. Way back in December 2009 we named Beth Jeans Houghton, the Geordie lass who was making oddball Celtic folk music, as one of our Ones to Watch for 2010. Since then there’s been diddly squat from her except for a tour with Stornoway and a few festival appearances, although we should have taken notice when she sang "I will return." Finally she’s secured a deal with Mute and a Ben Hillier (Blur, Doves, Elbow) produced album is readying itself for release, although you will still have to wait until autumn to get that. Dodecahedron is the first slice of multi-sided folk-pop to be released from it and is available as a free download by clicking on the arrow on the player below.
We featured Picture Book as a new wave at the start of the year and now a new demo has surfaced from the Liverpool based three-piece. “Can I kiss you tonight?” lead singer Greta asks before leading us to the dance floor and musically sticking her tongue down our throat, which is absolutely fine with us. Take us home now please. Musical underwear may be coming off soon.
Finally, we leave the best to last. Canada’s Austra is another act that first featured on Breaking More Waves back in January before a Hype Machine frenzy gradually grew through February and into March with this track – the groups signature tune - Lose It. Music bloggers can often get too wrapped up into being ‘the first to post’ about a particular song. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, the most important ingredient of music is time. So, we’re swinging the spotlight back onto Austra slowly, confident that after a couple of months of listening their Zola-meets-Florence-operatic-electronica is 100% worthy of the buzz. Lose It elevates Austra above cult status, even if it does sound a little like the the Lloyds TSB For The Journey advert (here).
A broad musical perspective and open-mindedness has always been something we’ve tried as best as possible to embrace. As we listen to more and more music we find that our tastes widen and to a certain extent they become harder to predict. It probably helps that we’re based in the UK where we’re lucky to have incredibly fantastic radio shows such as those of Huw Stephens, Rob Da Bank and much of BBC 6 Music’s output, where indie sits comfortably next to pop, dance, folk, hip-hop and experimental music. It’s a rich tapestry that many other countries simply don’t have in their national broadcasting output. It’s one of the reasons why music blogs are increasingly important in the USA, where much music programming is very genre specific and unchallenging.
The beauty of an expansive musical alphabet is that it enables us to bring lo-fi guitar delights such as The Notes, and then 12 hours later some uplifting electropop that makes us go a little bit ga-ga-dance-round-handbag-mental the next. Featuring the charismatic vocals of Faroe Islander Greta Svabo Bech - you may have heard her on Raise Your Weapon by Deadmau5 - Picture Book are a three piece group based in Liverpool who have the ability to produce beautiful club-bound anthems packed with grace and euphoria in equal measure. Having been picked up by the legendary Seymour Stein, the man who formed Sire Records and was responsible for bringing the likes of Madonna and The Talking Heads to the world, you may expect a fair amount of buzz about Picture Book as the year goes on.
From the delirious radio friendly People In Love which raves it up like Faithless in their prime, to the hands in the air hedonistic pulses of Sunshine – it’s perfect for that sexy swimwear clad dancing by the sands Ibiza moment – Picture Book are a band who are designed to make you feel good.
Let the joy commence - thank god for expansive musical taste – Picture Book are going to take you higher.
