“There’s a crown covered in glitter and gold, I’m gonna wear it whether you like it or not.” With those words (and a few more) Oh Wonder kick away the self-doubt and fly high with Hallelujah, the first song to be released from their forthcoming third album. Don’t be fooled by the gentle opening piano chords reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th on the songs intro though, for this one follows its own pop-path. It’s a path lined with strings, a thumping hyperactive beat and spacey layered vocals in a garden of utter delight. Oh Wonder’s songs have often carried a message and a sense of hope; their debut of album in 2015 got me through a pretty tough time. If you’re finding that you're questioning yourself and the cynics are kicking you down do watch this excellent one shot video, it might just help a little. It's fantastic to have Anthony and Josephine back. They're a band that should be available on prescription, they're that good for you.
Today is the last day of the month, which means it’s the day when I update the Breaking More Waves monthly Spotify playlist with all of the songs featured in March's posts. You can find the new one by clicking here. It’s also the day when Oh Wonder release a new single. Hold on, what’s that? Earthquakes shake, volcanoes erupt and the world tilts on its axis, because this isn’t meant to be is it? Sure, it’s great to have new Oh Wonder material (more of which in a moment), but we all know that Anthony and Josephine, for their debut album, released a single every month at the beginning of the month. Now they’ve turned everything on its head. Are they 24 hours early, or 31 days late? This a game changer. OK, I’m probably going a little (ok, a lot) over the top here. The reality is probably more to do with the fact that today is Friday, which is new release day across the world, and with Oh Wonder now an established band, they’re playing by a few of the established rules of the music industry. So what’s new single Ultralife (which they’ve been teasing the title of on Instagram for the last few days) like? We all know Oh Wonder can write a good tune. There’s 15 of them on their debut album (my favourite record of 2015). So the fact that Ultralife would be anything but was hardly in doubt. The question is more what sort of tune is it? It isn’t another Chet Faker influenced electronic pop ballad for sure. But neither is it such a radical shift that it’s unrecognisable as Oh Wonder. The trademark boy-girl vocals (although Josephine dominates, singing some on her own), keyboards and strong songcraft are all present and correct, but Ultralife has a fluttering higher energy to it than you might expect. It sounds like a carnival – the musical version of glitter, confetti canons shooting for the sky and glorious summer warmth. “I’m young forever in the sun,” Josephine coos as she sings of finding someone and emptiness turning to hope. It’s a classic feel good-pop song. Oh Wonder have done it again. They turn the gloom into gold. Oh Wonder - Ultralife
From my favourite record of 2015 (read why by clicking here) comes a new video for the song Lose It. The concept is pretty simple - some dancers audition in front of the band. The twist is that the curtain behind the dancers hides a troop of dancers, ticker tape cannons and giant inflatable balls…..Surprise!!! As the curtain drops the audition participants are encouraged to carry on. The lyrics: “Move your feet and feel it in the space between, you gotta give yourself a moment, let your body be, we gotta lose it, we gotta lose it,” being given a very visual interpretation on the world wide web. The band have also made a point in saying that these dancers were actually auditioning, they're not actors – the reactions you see are genuine and, like everything Oh Wonder seem to do, rather lovely. Away from the internet the Oh Wonder success story continues in the real world, with the band playing sold out shows across the US (unfortunately due to the heavy snow storms they’ve had to cancel their gig in Washington DC tonight, but it will be rescheduled). Then they return to their home country of the UK in March for what will almost inevitably be more full to capacity gigs. Oh Wonder - Lose It (Video)
Breaking More Waves’ favourite record of 2015 is the debut record by Oh Wonder. If you scan the end of year lists there are certain records you’ll probably see the critics picking time and time again; Sufjan Stevens, Julia Holter, Jamie XX. But you probably won't see Oh Wonder that often, if at all. The only time we've seen their name so far is on big American blog Hillydilly at number 9. Does that mean it isn’t ‘good’? Does that mean that our taste is ‘poor’? Well that’s for you to decide. Taste is about judgement and each person makes judgements about another’s taste based on their own preferences, often informed by their own personal culture. But we haven’t selected Oh Wonder as our favourite record of the year just because we think it’s good (although of course we firmly believe it’s a truly wonderful collection of songs). We’ve chosen it because, it’s by far and away our most played record of the year. The important thing here is to understand the reasons why it’s our most played. Here’s the answer: 2015 has been a pretty tough time in places for us, particularly from around late September when this record came out. There have been some incredibly good times as well, but parts of it have been a real slog, emotionally, physically and mentally. We haven’t told many of our friends or family this, instead battling on, trying to carry out the multiple roles we have (partner, father, boss, friend) as best we can. It’s what people expect. It’s come as a bit of a shock to some when we’ve told them that not everything is right in our world. We’ve always been pretty good at being emotionally sturdy and dependable. Oh Wonder’s record has carried us through that time. It’s a record with a sense of hope and beauty and romance and love and tenderness that we’ve needed as a crutch when everything hasn’t seemed so good. There’s something about the words that Josephine and Anthony sing on this album that have resonated with us more than anything else we’ve heard this year. “I know you’re sad and tired, you’ve got nothing left to give, but you’ll find another life to live, I know you’ll get over it,” might not be the greatest poetry you’ve ever heard, but those words, from the song Landslide have lifted our heavy heart many times in the last few months. We’ve referred to their tune Heart Hope as being ‘a wonderfully positive hug of a song’ on the blog before, and that’s exactly what it is. It’s the one reason that, for us, Oh Wonder stands out head and shoulders over any other album of 2015. It’s also the reason why, we believe, many other people around the world, probably the sort of people who don’t write music blogs and end of year lists, love this record. This is of course ironic, when you consider that Oh Wonder first found their music getting exposure through websites and blogs. Oh Wonder’s album is one that as human beings, who all experience the ups, the downs, the trials, the tribulation and the weird emotions of life, we can all relate to. It’s a very compassionate record – a record that stands for living a better life rather than the narcissistic iGeneration attitude that modern pop seems to foster these days. There’s not many bands, who on their debut, can write a song about the thought of needing immunity from disease, sadness, hopelessness or fear, using the idea of white blood cells as a metaphor for love and support after meeting a fan who had undergone an operation to remove a cancerous brain tumour. Oh and seeing as we’ve got this far, we’d better mention the music as well. It’s lovely. Of course, it’s not for everyone (what record is – even Adele has her critics), but if like us you’re a fan of boy-girl synchronised singing over tastefully classic mid-tempo songwriting formed from piano and soft electronics, then you’ll probably find an awful lot to love from Oh Wonder. We fully realise that Oh Wonder’s album will never be considered a ‘classic’ by the rock journalist type. The reviews it received from critics were on the whole very average. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can take away how we feel about this record and the journey we’ve been on with it in 2015. That’s why Oh Wonder is our album of 2015. Oh Wonder - Livewire (Video)
Of course we know there’s still 22 days of 2015 left, which theoretically means that our favourite song of the year could yet to be released, but experience tells us that’s pretty damn unlikely (although Låpsley came close in December 2013 with Station). So without further ado, here are the 5 songs that have made us laugh the most, cry the most and most importantly, dance the most. There's been a lot of dancing. Song Of The Year - Petite Meller – Baby Love What we said in January 2015: “One of the brightest things about pop music is its occasional ability to dazzle by throwing in the unexpected and for it all to make sense and be utterly brilliant. Such is the new video and song from French singer Petite Meller, who up to now has been skirting around the edges but never hitting the bullseye. That all changes with new tune Baby Love which throws in giraffes, big hats, flamingo impressions, dancing and saxophone playing children and music that hits the ‘it’s good to be alive’ button with some force. If you watch this and don’t feel deliriously happy afterwards then something is seriously wrong. We're handing the award for best pop video January 2015 to Petite Meller right now”
The Runners Up Oh Wonder – Landslide What we said in July 2015: “We’re sorry, but all of you geology boffins are going to be a little disappointed, because the song isn’t anything about an earth movement that leads to the triggering of a ground failure in a downwards direction. Instead, it’s a soothing and infinitely pretty tune of comfort and friendship, effectively saying ‘keep your chin up,’ but in a rather more sensitive way than that.”
Mura Masa ft Nao – Firefly What we said in November 2015: "Take one listen to Firefly (one of the underground pop songs of 2015) and you’ll understand. He makes crisp, glitchy, electronic dance music that has one eye on the dancefloor, one eye on the headphones and one eye on the pop arena. Oh, that’s three eyes, but that’s the point. Mura Masa does things just that little bit differently."
Oh Wonder – White Blood What we said in June 2015: "We live in an internet enabled world that seems to become ever more callous, ever more judgemental, ever more unhopeful. Listen to this song. Go and hug someone. Tell them that you love them. For without hope and love we’re lost. This tune will make you feel that love."
Public Service Broadcasting – The Other Side What we said in August 2015: "The Other Side just oozes atmosphere, with the mounting tension in Mission Control becoming the central force of the piece. Despite the professional and controlled delivery from the announcer, you can hear the joy in his voice as Apollo 8 re-establishes contact and the music perfectly matches that happiness as it gushes forward in celebratory style. Absolutely brilliant and surprisingly emotional."
Let’s take a look at some of the comments on Oh Wonder’s Soundcloud for Heart Hope, their latest and last song that they have uploaded to the world wide web for their one year project to write, record and release one song every month: “For fucksake. How is everything you guys make perfect?” “Prettiest song yet, no question.” “Best song, to end the best year of my life. Thank you Oh Wonder.” “Can your music be any more perfect. Damn, you guys are so good!” “This makes me want to cry, and then make pancakes.” And that’s just the start of them. When Ant and Jospehine started this project they surely could have had no idea of how people in different parts of the world, via the power of the internet, would fall for their music and find their homespun tunes so touching and so easy to relate to. But they have. And now this Friday there’s an album. It will be an odd one, because if you’ve been following Oh Wonder, you’ll already know exactly what to expect. Next are the gigs. Of course Ant and Josephine have played live many times before, but never together, and never with this huge surge of love from people who have embraced their songs. The shows are going to be incredibly exciting for everyone involved. We’re expecting a few tears to be shed at their first gig - well, from this blogger anyway - on the 16th September at London’s ICA , which is completely sold out. If you haven't ordered the album yet, treat yourself and click here, but before that, if you haven't heard it yet, listen to Heart Hope, a wonderfully positive hug of a song. Sometimes, when the world's a bit shitty, when everything's getting on top of you, when everyone around you seems to be doing things bigger, better and more successful than you, it's important to have someone tell you that they love you. That's what we get from this song. Let it kiss your ears. Oh Wonder - Heart Hope
“For the next few months we might just be the blog putting the 'late' into latest music,” we said not so long ago (full explanation of why here) and today we’re doing just that with the latest track from internet-sensations-that-are-actually-people-in-real-life-as-well-and-not-just-something-fabricated-by-your-wireless-connection* Oh Wonder, that we’re posting a little late. It’s called Landslide and we’re sorry, but all of you geology boffins are going to be a little disappointed, because the song isn’t anything about an earth movement that leads to the triggering of a ground failure in a downwards direction. Instead, it’s a soothing and infinitely pretty tune of comfort and friendship, effectively saying ‘keep your chin up,’ but in a rather more sensitive way than that. You may well have already heard it by now (it has at the time of writing already hit 50k plays on Soundcloud, even although it has only been out a couple of days), but in case you haven’t, and you’re even later than us, press play (especially if you’re feeling a bit down in the dumps) and your day might will just seem a little bit better. Then once you're feeling a little more cheery, smile even more with the news that after selling out their forthcoming debut shows, Oh Wonder has announced their album release plans and some further UK dates. Find all the info on this link. (*We can 100% confirm this to be true – we sat opposite the duo on the London Underground the other day. We hoped that pivotal moment for the band might find them penning their next tune along the lines of 'didn't we have a lovely time the day we met a blogger' but it seems that sadly our influence didn't reach that far. Sad face emoji etc) Oh Wonder - Landslide
It’s not often we simply copy and paste a press release or a statement from a band onto Breaking More Waves, as we prefer to put our own stamp on things. However, today, having listened to White Blood, the beautiful and deeply human new tune from Oh Wonder and having read about the story behind the song, we’ve decided that the band’s words explain things way better than we could ever manage. So here they are, unedited: "Earlier this year we had the pleasure of meeting Steven and Wendi, our fans - and now friends, from the US. They are both remarkable people - generous, warm-hearted and so spirited. Steven is a doctoral student at MIT, and after a voluntary academic scan he discovered a baseball-sized cancerous brain tumour, which was successfully removed after a 10-hour awake brain surgery. We are humbled to have collaborated with Steven on the artwork for our forthcoming single, 'White Blood'. The image is a very zoomed-in image of part of his brain tumour, photographed under a microscope by the man himself! We wrote 'White Blood' to explore the idea of needing immunity from disease, sadness, hopelessness or fear, not only in the physical form of white blood cells, but also with simple human love and support. This song is for you, Steven and Wendi, and for anyone else out there that is dealing with difficult physical or mental health circumstances. We are all here for each other." Read more about this incredible image (notice the way there appears to be someone dancing within the tumor tissue) here We live in an internet enabled world that seems to become ever more callous, ever more judgemental, ever more unhopeful. Listen to this song. Go and hug someone. Tell them that you love them. For without hope and love we’re lost. This tune will make you feel that love. Oh Wonder - White Blood
The first of every month should really be re-named ‘Oh Wonder Day’ because that’s when the internet-busting pop duo upload another chilled to perfection three or minutes of loveliness to the world wide web and thousands of people suddenly feel romantically gooey again. Latest offering Livewire has been out there for two days now and already the Soundcloud embed is full of comments that virtually all say some sort of variation of the word ‘beautiful.’ What must the band themselves be thinking? After all it’s not like they’re new to this game. Yet in the last 8 months they’ve racked up over 9 million plays on Soundcloud and have sold out all of their forthcoming live shows. Under her alter-ego Layla, Josephine was doing reasonably well with songs such as Oh My Love and Smokestacks (remember when we first featured her here in January 2013 on New Year’s Day with her tune New Year?), but nothing like this. Somehow the Oh Wonder project has connected with people more than anything else Josephine or Anthony have ever worked on.This is a great example of the old cliché if at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Oh Wonder has become a role model for any dispirited band that are scratching their heads wondering why it hasn’t ‘happened’ for them. So the question is, why has it done so for this London duo? The answer, of course, is that there is no straightforward answer. But when you listen to Livewire what is clear is that the music is based around many old fashioned things that still hold artists in good stead for the longer term over fashion, buzz and the like; quality songcraft, talent and an ability to pen a tune that touches on an emotional level without ever being so heavy or claustrophobically deep that it scares off the masses. There was probably a bit of good timing and luck involved as well, but who would want to deny an artist a bit of luck, when what they're doing is bringing such pleasure? Certainly not here at Breaking More Waves. The Oh Wonder album will be released on the 4th September. The next song will, inevitably, be released on the first of next month. Oh Wonder - Livewire
Whilst Breaking More Waves has been pissing about with stupid April Fools' branded fashion blog posts there’s been a hell of a lot of good new music released. We’re going to have to let some of it slip through the net, it's impossible to cover everything, but there are a few songs that we simply can’t ignore and one of those is the next chapter of Oh Wonder’s one song a month series. This series seems to have taken a life all of its own. Whilst the London duo may not be the first to put out songs in this manner we can’t remember there being such a sense of anticipation for each release as this before. What it has unquestionably shown is that it’s still very possible for an unsigned band (or at least unsigned at the start of the process) to develop a fan base and profile on line, as long as they have one key ingredient - great songs. We’ve written before of how Hype Machine / Blog love doesn’t necessarily equate into ‘real’ fans, but with Oh Wonder’s debut show at London’s prestigious ICA already sold out it shows that it can be done.
So to April’s installment. There’s no fooling around with this one. Midnight Moon is quite devine. Keys, percussion, combined boy-girl vocals, that is all, but all shaped with great easy on the ear songcraft that creates a shiver. The little breakdown at around 2 minutes, before a surging electronic growl develops and Jospehine and Anthony sing ‘we are going over’ over and over gets us every time. Is this the best in the series yet? Quite possibly.
If you haven’t already done so maybe it’s time to fall giddily in love with Oh Wonder. Oh Wonder - Midnight Moon
If you read the news last week that from this summer there will be a standardised worldwide new music release day of Friday and your thoughts were that this just shows what a dated construct the music industry has of what a release date is, then you were thinking the same way we did. Because let’s face it, new music is released every single day of the year. What the industry means is ‘on sale date’ rather than release date. Because once a track has been put up online, through Soundcloud, You Tube, Bandcamp or anywhere else and people can listen to it, it has been released, even if you can’t buy it. Anyone can get access to it as long as they can access the world wide web. Right now there’s probably no better example of a band who are playing with that concept of 'release date' than Oh Wonder, the once mystery group who are no longer a mystery group - we explained all about who they were in this post here. They’re releasing one track every month for a year. Today being the 1st March means they have a new song to release, irrespective of the fact that you can’t yet buy it or what day of the week it is. After all you can already stream it through Spotify, Hype Machine or share it via the Soundcloud embed (below). This one has been well and truly released. The IFPI, the worldwide body that represents the recording industry, has suggested that by changing release dates to Friday “creates the opportunity to reignite excitement” around the release of music, which is basically marketing talk for ‘making it easier for record labels to hype a song’. But what the IFPI fails to recognise here is that music fans don’t just get excited about music on one day a week. We get excited about music every day of the week. Including Sunday’s. So here’s the new Oh Wonder song. It’s called Technicolour Beat. From its title you might be expecting some sort of acid-house smiley face banger, but it’s another charmingly sweet and soft-hued electronic pop tune that fans of the duo will instantly recognise as the band’s style. They describe it as a song about catching a sunrise at a house party in Melbourne last year. If you're excited about it, why not give it some love on Hype Machine (here) and in your own small way give it the chance of even more people hearing it. Oh Wonder - Technicolour Beat
A week in new music blogging seems like an eternity. Such is the pace that songs are uploaded, disseminated and analysed. So having taken just over a week away from the blog, posting the latest song from Oh Wonder after it has been online for 7 days and hit number 1 on the Hype Machine chart may seem a bit off the pace to some. Thankfully being fully unfunded and independent means we can post what the hell we like when we like. Tomorrow expect something from buzz band The Beatles perhaps? We hear that Kanye’s latest guitarist has something to do with them. Just in case you haven’t come across Oh Wonder yet, here’s a quick summary: 1. They’ve been releasing 1 track a month and plan to release an album exactly 1 year after they released their first track in September. 2. All of the songs they have released have found much favour from the blogs. There’s a simple reason for this of course – they’re very good. Our favourite is still The Rain, but the latest Lose It is not far behind. 3. Until recently Oh Wonder hadn’t revealed very much about their identities, although in our previous post (here) we’d hinted that previously featured Breaking More Waves starlet Layla (who had in the past released under her real name Jose Vanders) may well be one of the vocalists. Confirmation came with the release of Lose It, Jose’s vocal being ever more distinctive, the song structure being undeniably similar to some of her past work. When we tweeted that we thought it sounded very similar to Layla last week (here) Oh Wonder favourited the tweet. Then came the biggest give away of them all, the names ‘Anthony & Josephine’ appeared on the members section of the Oh Wonder Facebook page (Anthony being Ant West, who has collaborated with Jose before and has a past history with bands such as Futures and We The Wild as well as various songwriting / production credits). This was followed by the press pic (above) appearing on Twitter, fully confirming what was already 99.9999% certain. It was Jose and Ant. So now we all know who they are we can get on with the really important stuff, and that’s enjoying the music. Lose It (an appropriate title considering Jose lost some front teeth a while ago and is now having some pretty hefty dental work) is another peach, perfectly conveying that special feeling of dancing into the night with someone new and the electric space between the two of you. Oh Wonder - Lose It
Today we’re introducing a band that over the last few months have been creating something of a new music blog storm. Oh Wonder is a UK pop duo that has been releasing one song a month since their debut Body Gold last September, first under the name Wonder Wonder but they have subsequently changed their name. Of course this idea of one track a month isn’t particularly new or original, even back in the 90’s John Peel endorsed indie heroes The Wedding Present did the same, gaining 12 top 30 chart singles with the likes of Blue Eyes, Come Play With Me and Sticky. Yet back in The Wedding Present’s day there wasn’t the rapid turnover of new music and the attention deficit disorder in listeners that comes from it – fans stuck around for longer and were prepared to give bands the benefit of the doubt when they put out a few duffers. As we enter 2015 bands (and particularly new bands) stand or fall on just their last song and so far Oh Wonder have made an impeccable start - 5 songs, all killer no filler. The latest addition to the Oh Wonder collection is our favourite so far. It's called The Rain and is a sad electronic slow jam that will have you weak at the knees with it late-night softness and boy-girl vocals (we’re particularly taken with the female one – fans of the likes of Emily And The Woods, Rae Morris and Layla will probably agree). The Rain flows with musical class and melancholy. “Ever since the rain, I’ve been waking on my own, left an open space in a home we built to grow,” it starts before pleading for the unnamed ex-lover to stay. Who are Oh Wonder? It seems that for now their identities are remaining private, although they revealed to Pigeons and Planes blog a while back that they’ve always been involved in music, “either as artists, songwriters, or behind the desk, and Wonder Wonder is a culmination of all our experience and knowledge from the last few years.” It also seems that they won’t be revealing who they are in the near future as this appears to be very much a studio project with no plans to play live yet. The band plan to release their album exactly 1 year to the day they put their first song on line, so put September 1st in your diary now. Take a listen to this sad lonely lovely electronic pop. Oh Wonder - The Rain
