Got to say that I think “Rad Pitt” is the absolute worst way you can introduce yourselves to the incredibly talented Egyptian Hip Hop. Not that it’s a bad song, and it’s perhaps purposefully laid back, but it does drift from being lazily brilliant to just sluggish, in parts, though it’s easy to see bags of potential if it’s tightened up, and we should remember that we are just listening to early demos. To be fair, I think I’d almost be more disappointed if their early demos were strangely polished, finished pieces of music; the possibilities with this band are endless.
If anything, that early potential has already been realised in their first release, which you can exchange your meaningless human pounds for on 1st March. Far from the languid stroll through their own musical ability that “Rad Pitt” was, “Heavy Heaven” and “Hazel Groove” nail down a complete and confident sound without forcing themselves into a constraining pigeon hole too early on in their very young career. From this incredibly textured foray into subtly electronic tinged indie, not only does further success beckon, but, most importantly, almost anything is possible. It’s almost that lack of knowledge of which way the band are going to turn next that marks them out from their contemporaries, and possibly explains why so many people are beginning to have their heads turned from this extraordinary young band.
Recently was on the receiving end of a mysterious e-mail from a PR that was completely empty, save for an attached mp3 from a band called The Shimmer. If anything, the absence of a laboured description was far more interesting, and didn’t run the risk of pissing me off within three stubbornly contrived sentences. Taught me a couple of things really. Primarily that mystery is preferable to bad English, but also that this accidental form of music PR is, actually, far more effective than throwing the dictionary at music. I guess that this could be why music journalism is far more effective online, where you can listen to/download whatever is having the thesaurus poured out onto it.
Unsurprisingly, turned out that it was a mistake, but the unpretentious “No Surprise At All” had stirred my interest enough to reply to said e-mail, and I eventually received the usual sentence or two. Ironically, although the lack of wording had initially interested me, the paragraph that I eventually received was equally intriguing; not only is “No Surprise At All” unhinged rock & roll to overpower bland and heartless radio fodder, but the single was likely to actually be appreciated, as it turns out that the song will be released on Hit Club (Wolf Gang, Egyptian Hip Hop, Is Tropical, May 68) in the near future. Stumbled across the future of both ecstatically sincere rock & roll and music PR in the space of a couple of e-mails. Efficiency.
If you can make grainy, speaker-splitting demos sound just inches away from air-wave humping singles within a year of forming, then you might just be a couple of lucky breaks away from success. You might just be Is Tropical as well – the latest Londoners to lift themselves out of their squats (without correcting stylishly messy hair) to carve strangely accessible tunes out of noise-covered creativity. Got to apologise for the sound quality of these demos, but the bit-rate really is irrelevant; the tunes are there, so if a wise A&R decides to chuck some notes at them, then who knows what could come of them.
PS – If you’re around the Liverpool area then you can catch them without digging into your pockets for any shrapnel (ie, free) at Mojo next Monday, 8th Feb. And if you really like them, or their hair, or both, then you can watch it all over again after you’ve forked over a tenner to the good people at Evol to see them with New Young Pony Club on Friday, March 26th.
![The Shimmer [5]](http://notmanyexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/TheShimmer5.jpg "The Shimmer [5]")
