Breaking More Waves Is 9 Years Old Today - Here's A Blog Post To Celebrate

9 years old today. 9 bloody years I’ve been doing this thing. This blog. This record of some of the stuff I’ve been listening to. 

It’s fascinating to look back over that time and see some of the artists that I’ve introduced. Some of them have gone on to be a huge creative and commercial success. Others, absolutely nothing. 

Here are a handful of examples. Look at the picture below. Recognise her? That’s Charli XCX back in 2009 when I first wrote about her. At the time she was flaunting a bunch of songs like Neon Fashion & Glowstix and Francheskaar and I concluded that although her music appealed to me I found it hard to see any long term appeal. 8 years on and she seems to be doing OK. Her first 2 albums proper ended up being some of my favourites of 2013 and 2015 respectively.

Here’s another one. Recognise them? No, me neither. But apparently, they were a band called Look Stranger! I featured them on the blog once and that was all. I can’t remember anything about what they sounded like now, even having re-read my original blog post. I never heard of them again.

And here’s one more. This was Skint & Demoralised. I named him as one to watch many years ago. His music never set the world alight (albeit listening back to it now I still really enjoy it) but years on Matt Abbott the singer cropped up on this TV advert (click here), showing that he was one to watch, just not in the way I originally thought.

What I’m trying to say with all of this is that in 9 years of music blogging what I’ve learnt is that anyone who tells you that they are a tastemaker and can predict the success of any artist is talking out of their arse*. Some acts make it, some don’t. Nobody has the perfect crystal ball. Every time someone tells you about how they were one of the first to discover a particular successful artist, ask them how many others they discovered that never went on to light up the world. By the law of averages, the more artists a site writes about, the more chance there is that some of them will go on to be massively commercially or artistically successful. 

All I can do, and all any blog worth their salt can do is bring you some new music and new artists I like. The rest is unknown.

Breaking More Waves is 9 years old today. Right now I’m celebrating that fact somewhere in a field in Somerset at Glastonbury Festival, probably with a cider / wine / gin and tonic in hand. Maybe all 3. 

I always said at some point the blog will end and when it does I’ll make a definite point about it. There will be no gradually fading away. But a big full stop. But not yet. I’ve got a little bit more fuel in the tank yet. Maybe not a lot, but it's not time for ending quite yet. 

Thanks for reading guys, without you it would be fairly pointless.

*Footnote. Some other things I've learnt whilst writing this blog are:

1. When times are bad (death / illness etc) music can be a salvation. In fact this blog has been a real help for me during those bad times - the last year in particular.

2. I also run a twitter account associated with the blog. Twitter is a very odd place - a weird bubble where people reinforce their own views with others like them and castigate those who do things differently to their world view - with little or no nuanced discussion. (How can you in 140 characters?). 

3. There's only so much you can say about music before you start repeating yourself. 

4. Musicians are weird and like to promote their art by sitting in the bath.

Look, Stranger! - New Waves

Have you ever wondered what London's premier space-age bachelor pad band would sound like? No, neither have we, but we have an answer anyway. For London four-piece Look, Stranger! (note the deliberate use of the exclamation mark in much the same way as Los Campesinos! use it – as if the group are wanting you to take notice BUT ARE STILL TOO AFRAID TO SHOUT IN CAPITALS) define themselves as such a band. By clicking play below you can put the flesh on the bones of this definition.

Let’s see what a few others have already said about Look, Stranger! They will ‘both move you and make you move’ suggest Oh Inverted Word. “They’re as multi-layered and thought-provoking as any of their contemporaries, but in place of the commonplace fried computers is set of gravity-defying marshmallows,” stated The Recommender, which conjures up some warped Willy Wonka vision of the first ever band floating in a sweet shop . Now it’s our turn to add a few words.

Look, Stranger! make indie music that’s formed out of intricate structures, electronics and subtle dance based atmospherics, without ever bringing to mind ‘da club’. It’s smooth, gently persuasive and innocent sounding. Think Wild Beasts with more groove (particularly when lead singer Tim gets his falsetto on during Dance Away) or the brother of the self-proclaimed ambitionless office disco of Trophy Wife. Look, Stranger! sit somewhere in this area. Despite that exclamation mark this is not a band that punch with massive impact first time round; in many ways it sounds like the group is trying to supress emotion, big choruses and hooks seem to have been thrown out of the window. That’s fine though; we don’t want everything to sound like Coldplay do we? There’s space for everyone. Look, Stranger! are more akin to the coy good looking lad who has been slowly dancing away in the corner of the indie disco and has gradually sidled up to you without you even noticing. Before you know it you’re dancing together and there’s a distinct possibility that you’re going to end up going home with him.

Look, Stranger! consist of the aforementioned Tim on vocals, David on piano and synth, Alistair on all things bass and Thomas who does things with percussion, samples and laptops. They have a couple of gigs lined up in London in August, keep an eye out on their Myspace for updates

If You're Listening by Look, Stranger!.

Look Around You by Look, Stranger!

Dance Away by Look, Stranger!