Champs - Vamala

The last time we featured sibling duo Champs on Breaking More Waves was way back in July 2013. Time flies. Now here they are about to release their second album and from it we’re streaming the title track and new song Vamala. What or who is a Vamala we hear you ask? Well a quick sniff around the internet suggests that it’s just a made up word. ““I was demoing a song, and I was just mumbling, trying to get a good melody to go over the top, just shouting different kind of phrases which were basically just gobbledigook,” Michael of the band told Yoppul website in an interview (here).

Starting with just a sparse drumbeat Vamala really kicks in when it gets to the chorus, with a floaty falsetto providing a hook that will get inside your head after just one listen. If you like it then save your pennies / dollars / euros or whatever currency you use to purchase their album from the 23rd February. Then if you have any change catch them on tour as well (dates here).

Champs - Vamala

Champs - New Waves

This is a new video from Champs. It’s been floating around the internet for a few days now, but our ‘no more than 2 blog posts a day’ rule means that it has had to take a back seat for a while. We apologise for this, but only if you’re the sort of person that demands that you hear everything on the day that it is released because you have to remain ‘relevant’. If like us you’ve still not got round to listening to every David Bowie album (well Tin Machine to be exact) you’ll know that being ‘relevant’ is actually pretty irrelevant in the bigger picture. 

So here’s the video for My Spirit Is Broken plus some things you might like to know about it.

1. The video is (if you live in the currently sweltering UK) perfectly timed as it features the band jumping into swimming pools with their clothes on. Now wouldn’t we all like to do that right now? 

2. We’ve never written about Champs before here. But we have written about Champs before here, on this very ‘sexy’ playlist thing we produced for Skeletory blog.

3. The video for My Spirit Is Broken was filmed in one of the most marvellous towns in the UK – Ventnor, Isle of Wight, a place where time seems to have stood still for the last thirty years and mass commercialisation by the corporates has hardly had any effect at all.

4. Ventnor in the Isle Of Wight is also an incredibly important location because it was the very place where the author of Breaking More Waves was conceived. (Near the top of Zig Zag road for anyone that’s really interested, but probably this is too much information).

5. Champs are playing Bestival this year, which is also on the Isle of Wight.

6. My Spirit Is Broken is one of those simple effective songs that just gets us every time. Classic songwriting, harmonies and a tinge of melancholy, really what’s not to like?

7. You can get the song for free from the bands website (here).We'll repeat again, really what's not to like about that? 

Champs - My Spirit Is Broken (Video)