Today’s been a hell of a day for a variety of distinctly boring reasons, so it says a lot of Good Dangers’ thumpingly melodic dream-pop that they actually have the ability to make everything seem at least 50% better. Maybe even 60%. We say that it’s ‘dream pop’ mostly because that’s how their singles label Cosine describe it, and they’re our new infatuation so we’ll stick to that, but to be entirely honest Good Dangers’ music pounds at the temples with accessibility and angst, without the hazy, ethereal qualities of dream pop. At the very least it should be called pop-dream. But that just wouldn’t work. So like we said, we’re going to stick to how Cosine describe it.
Appearing seemingly from nowhere onto various corners of the internet, the band are all alumni of London’s Goldsmiths which has a well earnt reputation for encouraging provocation and the avant-garde, and, quel surprise, the band are already experts in the slightly left-field pop song. In fact, “So Unkind”, released on a split double A-side with Peppercorn, is one of the most intoxicating, quirky and addictive pop songs we’ve had the pleasure of wasting our day listening to recently.
You can find them on twitter, Facebook, bandcamp, YouTube and even the much hated MySpace – in fact, they’ve got so many social networking outlets that it would take flame-haired moral vacuum Rebekah Brooks months to hack into them all*. That said, the band have said that they’re taking tentative steps into the public world; making their material available and letting people come to them. Judging by the clamour of positive reactions so far, and the constantly improving quality of their material, it’s a plan that’s working out very nicely for them indeed.
To sum it all up in a sentence, Cave Painting make reverb-sodden, anthemic, mournful and understated pop songs. Not that it makes an inch of difference in explaining how good the tracks we’ve heard so far are, but the words being splashed around the internet about this Brighton based 5-piece is that people with suits and cheque books in London are well into them. So are we, so when we approached them with the completely illogical offer of possibly releasing some of their music and losing some money in the process* in order to help people have a physical copy of their wonderfully dejected pop music, we were quite gutted to hear that Hideout Records had got in there first and will be making sure that we all hear a lot more from Cave Painting very soon. Somewhat ominously, all we could find on the internet relating to a “Hideout Records” claimed to be experts in the field of “sexy dance music”. We are, however, guessing that it’s unlikely that in the past 3 weeks they’ve turned into lusty beat-pounding maniacs, so expect more of their uplifting, gloriously forlorn atmospheres soon.
You can download both tracks at that link that you just read past.
*because people are generally tight, not because Cave Painting won’t sell.
PS – We massively caved in and are now on Twitter which is either a cause for tears of celebration but you’ll only find out if you give us a shout at @notmanyexperts and let us say bonjour back.
I know almost literally nothing about Stubborn Heart*. That’s right, no longer will I be able to prop up the music with meaningless (yet endearing) trivia. However, if these first couple of sentences are anything to go by, in good old time-honoured fashion, I’m giving it a decent try.
All the necessary comparisons have already been made and they’re exactly spot on: “The three J’s: Jamie xx, Jamie Woon and James Blake”. Now doesn’t that sound like the most intriguingly 2011 comparison you’ve ever heard… They’re nice blokes as well; I e-mailed asking if I could possibly ask them a few questions and they replied with the following lengthy response that put the 822 page Commons inquiry into the Iraq war to shame:
“No.”
Sort of. They actually told me that I could ask them some things, but they might not answer some things until they’ve finished what they’re working on. Fair play, at least they were honest, and let us establish that 1) there’s more than one of them and 2) they’re working on more material which, as your ears will discover below, is definitely good news.
For me, “Need Someone” encapsulates all of the elements that I had vainly hoped for in James Blake’s debut, and instead got most of from Jamie xx’s remix album. It has the soulful vocals, but they’re mixed with a breathless, stuttering tapestry of sounds that weave into a beat. As The Stool Pigeon would say: it’s ‘achingly beautiful’. But it really is. And if it’s anything to go by, it looks like James Blake has started quite a trend; you won’t find me complaining if this is the standard being set.
* Except that there’s at least two of them, they’re from London, they have released a 12” white label single themselves (“Need Someone/Two Times A Maybe”) and you can stream another track here.
PS – …on a slightly more speculative note, they’re clearly already accomplished producers whose names are probably lodged in our heads somewhere. Self-releasing a run of 300 12” records when literally nobody has heard of you and seeing it turn up in all the top record stores? They’ve done this before, or they’re doing the opposite of stealing from record shops and sneaking in to stack their own white label.
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