At year end it’s pretty much 100% guaranteed that one of the songs that will find itself sitting pretty near the top of the Breaking More Waves ‘irresistibly happy’ list will be Down With The Trumpets by Rizzle Kicks. Its brassy grooves and ska-bound rhythms have managed to re-invent and merge the sounds of The Specials and De La Soul in one youthful modern package and bring the bounce wherever it’s heard.
With a well-received Radio 1 Big Weekend slot and a having spread the word further with a number of shows at Brighton’s Great Escape it’s onwards and upwards for Rizzle Kicks and that starts with a slightly re-worked version of Down With The Trumpets (the original which we first featured in November 2010 now cast into the hidden dark chambers of the internet) plus a new video and a Wookie remix that was given its first spin out on the radio courtesy of BBC Radio1 Xtra's MistaJam last Saturday. You can purchase the track on June 12 on iTunes.
Ready? Yeah yeah, let’s get down with the trumpets.
The word cuckoo applies itself to a surprisingly large number of resplendent songs. I’m A Cuckoo by Belle and Sebastian, Cuckoo by Curve (anybody remember them?) and even Marina and the Diamonds got in on the act yelping the word on Mowgli’s Road. Now here’s another to add to the list. Still Corners was a band that soundtracked the slow drift from the golden rays of summer to the more muted browns of autumn for us last year with a number of posts on the blog. Since then things have been a little quiet but the group have been busy getting themselves a proper record deal with Sub Pop (who have also signed Memoryhouse, another band that formed part of that soundtrack) and preparing a new album entitled Creatures of an Hour, which they will be releasing later this year.
Cuckoo, the first single from the album, follows on from where Still Corners left off – that is to say it’s dreamy, hushed and idly beautiful – the kind of music that drifts rather than punches – and that’s fine by us. There’s no official stream or video of the song right now, but this live version is certainly more than adequate.
Richard Russell, founder of record label, XL Recordings, said in a recent interview with the Guardian that the sexualisation of female artists is “boring, crass and unoriginal.” He certainly has a point and the fact Adele, an artist on his label, has sold huge amounts of records without having to ‘sex up’ shows what it is possible to do.
But let’s be clear about this. From the starting rush of adolescence, to your first snog at the school disco, pop music has always partly been about sex; remember Elvis Presley thrusting his hips provocatively? Britney Spears in a red PVC catsuit? It’s always been there and probably always will. When you’re young, full of breathless hormones, your friends, looking good and getting f*cked are probably all you care about and pop stars are part of the fantasy. Of course, commentators are right to express their concerns about the influence of sexualised female pop stars and their affect on young impressionable teens and pre-teens. There’s a line to be drawn. But ultimate sexiness is not about revealing everything, it’s about suggestion, confidence and imagination.
Which brings us, for the second time today, to Pris – a sexy band. Pris are not sexy in a fake grinding-your-half-naked-arse like Rihanna manner, but in a confidence-verging-on-arrogance cool indie-punk way. They’ll no doubt get criticised for just being a sum of their reference points, but we reckon that they really wouldn’t care. Their cheeky-trashy couldn’t give a shit attitude feels surprisingly refreshing; we could quite imagine a good percentage of indie-punk teen boys (and girls) wanting to be in their gang – and, thank god, this is a band who look like a proper gang. Boring crass and unoriginal? Only if you’ve lost the will to live. Back in the early 90’s the Manic Street Preachers were criticised for ‘not being able to play’, the indie snobs just waiting for them to fail. Pris could well get the same sort of backlash – but judging by their tweets, they’ll be ready to take it on just as the Manics did. Sometimes there’s more to pop music than just pure musical quality, otherwise all we’d have are 100’s more Adele’s.
Earlier today we posted about the Pris involvement in Wangate and streamed their debut single – a foxy uh-huh-yeah Kenickie-esque puncher. Now the band have released a video – littered with their musical reference points we think it’s fair to say the probably don’t like Mumford and Sons, but do like The Clash and The Pixies. And how often do you see Birdland as a reference point these days? Now were Birdland ever sexy? Were The Pixies? Mumford & Sons? It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
This weekend just gone a minor twitter storm in a tea cup brewed. “What’s on your iPod?” Ellie Goulding was asked in an interview. “I really love the alternative music scene and people like Fleet Foxes and Wild Beasts, but I’ve also got Friendly Fires to Rihanna and Beyonce. I’ve even got Don’t Stop Believing,” Ellie answered.
It didn’t find favour with the controversial hormonal punk-pop London four-piece Pris who tweeted Ellie’s answer to their followers with the statement “Why Ellie Goulding is a massive wang.” Pris you may remember have previously (and somewhat hilariously) rubbished Guillemots, Adele, Jessie J (relating her to Mystic Meg) and Noah and the Whale.
Pris have been picking up support from the likes of Eddie Argos (Art Brut), Nicky Wire (Manic Street Preachers), Everett True (music critic) and a number of UK music blogs including Just Music That I Like, Sweeping The Nation, Von Pip Musical Express as well as ourselves over the last few months. It was one of these bloggers – Von Pip who re-tweeted the Pris tweet. Then the fun began.
Before you knew it the war of the wangs had broken out, with potential-pop-starlet-but-no-hits-yet Spark and her manager responding to Von Pip. “Fucking annoying people being nasty for no reason. I think it's fair to say that both Von Pip & Pris are huge fucking wangs. HUGE WANGS,” retorted Spark. Then her manager threw at Von Pip “Write about things you like then, eh? Otherwise, that makes YOU the wang.”
The irony in this miniscule wangate was that neither Pris, Spark or her manager were probably aware that Twitter has a new head of operations in Europe. His name? Mr Wang. We wonder what he would have thought of his name being used in this context.
The day that modern society loses the freedom of speech, in any form from twitter to protest, will be an incredibly depressing one. All we would be left with would be one sided sycophantic opinion – and that doesn’t help form any sort of wisdom, on-going intelligent debate about issues or give any context to form views about what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the world. Von Pip’s politely restrained response to Spark’s manager sums it up neatly. “Actually I think I'll decide what I write about if that's ok with you. But thanks for the advice.”
So for Mr Wang here’s the debut single from Pris – The Better You Look The More You See - streaming courtesy of Von Pip on Soundcloud. He’s one of the most credible (and funniest) UK bloggers out there, wang or not. That’s not sycophancy from Breaking More Waves – just what we think. Likewise we love the music of Ellie Goulding. We enjoy a fair amount of Spark’s as well. We’re kind of hoping that Pris will call us wangs for doing so and even if they do, we’ll still love them as well.
Pris play a variety of shows in London in the next few weeks and have also been confirmed for Breaking More Waves hometown multi-gig multi-venue festival in September, Southseafest, alongside the likes of Johnny Foreigner, Die! Die! Die!, Trophy Wife, The Miserable Rich, Bleeding Heart Narrative, Dry The River and My First Tooth with plenty more to follow. Catch Pris live then and enjoy their sassy-pouting-splenetic-indie-punk-pop whilst you can.
