I’m going to be honest. When I first heard “Friend Crush” by Brooklyn band Friends, I assumed that the lyric “I wanna’ be your friend” was just conveying the loneliness of our protagonist. However, if the sultry, brooding and deeply suggestive new video for “Friends Crush” is anything to go by, it seems like she’s after more than a friendly hug. I say ‘suggestive’, but the two female band members are practically kissing, which is probably less subtle than I make it sound. I’m aware that all male readers will now be watching the video below and not reading, which is cool. This will probably be our most popular post ever.
But if your eyes are still on these words because you’re more interested in the music, then you’re in luck, because the only reason we’re writing about this is because the first time we heard “Friend Crush”, our pulse gradually increased**, and we completely fell for their instantaneous Cults-esq harmonies laid over simplistic, dreamy tracks. Just like Warpaint, the whole thing is driven by an immensely powerful bass line, but the end result is more like Sleigh Bells at their least industrial and most intoxicating. It’s more addictive than heroin and a lot cheaper, too, so in these tough economic times, we recommend you go get some.
They’ve just been signed to Lucky Number, too, who brought us Darwin Deez, so Friends should be hooking many more fans in the coming months. The “I’m His Girl” single will be released in September, with an album pencilled in for early 2012.
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.
After a surge of internet scribblings that threatened to make him 2009’s latest buzz-band-fatality, Wolf Gang has played it calmly and slowly, and is now enjoying the benefits of that approach. Yesterday, new track “Something Unusual” surfaced, another track from debut album ‘Suego Faults’ (out 27th June). And it is actually far more unconventional than most hyped artists dare to attempt, stretched out with a languid chorus, before diving into a verse more similar to his usual glam pop theatrics. It may not quite stray into Panda Bear territory, this is, after all, a pop song, but you’ve got to hand him some credit for not writing “Pieces Of You” a dozen times, slapping an album name on it, and letting the record label do their marketing tricks.
The trouble is, many hyped artists are written about solely on the basis of one or two songs, so, for them, where is the incentive to step out of that comfort zone and try something else? Blinded by what seems like success just around the corner, an enormous amount of these artists end up releasing completely lacklustre albums with no depth and variation. By playing things slowly, Wolf Gang’s allowed some time for his sound to develop, managed to avoid the apparently enticing lights of the spectacularly average indie-artist’s lifestyle, and is instead poised to deliver an album that stands a far better chance of justifying the hype than many, many of his contemporaries allow themselves.
After all of that… ‘Suego Faults’ had better be bloody amazing.
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