MySpace Hop - May 2011 (Feature)

Echo Lake

http://www.myspace.com/echolakeandthestrangeera

Echo Lake are by far my favourite new band this year. Their Young Silence EP is a proper dream-pop head-fuck; a hazy, cloying cloud of warmth that swamps your brain in the most gorgeous way. It’s disorienting and soothing all at once, with the lush vocals counterbalancing the uneasy ambience that drifts under the surface. I’m expecting a pretty trippy dawdle across MySpace based on my starting point...

Banjo or Freakout

http://www.myspace.com/banjoorfreakout

I’ve struggled with Banjo or Freakout for a few months, I must concede. I think it’s this ‘British Deerhunter’ thing that sets my suspicions a-tingling. The parallels are really obvious though, so it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that it’s all a little contrived. If you can somehow manage to get past that (and if so, you’re more forgiving than this old curmudgeon), you’re in for some perfectly competent reverb-heavy pop. I’d still rather listen to Bradford Cox though.

Walls

http://www.myspace.com/walls_band

Oooh, now this IS good. This lot proudly publicise 9/10 and 4/5 album reviews aplenty on their page, so I’m moderately embarrassed to have missed this. It’s beautifully considered ponderous techno, ideal for languid summer evenings in the garden. Burnt Sienna is about the pinnacle of the loveliness, but A Wirus Waits is pretty interesting too. The ingredients might be quite minimal here, but there’s still a hell of a lot going on. A lovely find.

Allez-Allez

http://www.myspace.com/allezallez

Man, it took some effort to click off Walls’ page. Dancey London twosome Allez-Allez, to be honest, aren’t quite as enticing a prospect. Their sound is much more souped up than that of Walls, but it’s also far less imaginative, with each dreary beat-heavy cut bleeding into the last. Even their Fever Ray remix sounds exactly bloody like one of their own tracks, with not even Karen Dreijer Andersson’s infrequent ghostly mewlings managing to kick-start the thing.

It’s a Fine Line

http://www.myspace.com/itsafineline

The final stop of a fair less sleepy hop than I had anticipated is at the door of nutso London pair It’s a Fine Line, who should maybe double date with Allez-Allez to discuss how to be interesting. Their rubber-limbed electro-pop is an enjoyably mental diversion from the daily cut-n-thrust, although I’m not sure I’d have the endurance to sit through an entire album of it. Their remixes are a bit more palatable, as they breathe a bit of life into The XX and sex up Au Revoir Simone a treat.