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(SXSW 2014 flavoured!) Bands to Watch #272: Glass Animals

Yes, you read that right. We may still only be in 2013, but we’re already looking ahead to SXSW 2014, which happens in less than 5 months. In addition to our normal Bands to Watch features, we’ll also be previewing the best bands who have received shouts for the big event. First up are a band from Oxford that Martin will tell you more about…

Glass Animals are experts at downtempo, atmospheric, bass-heavy songs – think Portishead having coffee with Morcheeba – while the coffee’s a tangy roast by James Blake. The Morcheeba comparison is most apt (don’t laugh at the back – Morcheeba survived Britpop, have just released their eighth album, and celebrate their 20th birthday in a couple of years – pretty impressive stuff): recent single ‘Black Mambo’ echoes their lazy drum sound, their melodic approach to a vocal line, and a raft of decent lyrical similes. Things are considerably darker here, however – this isn’t exactly party music, although there is a certain sleaziness in the snaking groove and massed crescendo, which could get a certain type of too-cool-for-school crowd in the mood for a gentle grind.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNygDLi9gb4[/youtube]

Fellow AA-side ‘Exxus’ kicks off with a menacing, oily bassline, overlaid with Dave Bayley’s smooth yet gently threatening vocals, electronica ebbing, flowing and bleeping around him. “Wake up with a hatchet over your head,” he warns, before mellifluous mellotron mixes with otherworldly, disembodied voices, as if Gyorgy Ligeti and Edgar Froese were having a bromance right there in one’s Eustachian tube. Recently signed to producer du jour Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone label, surely a sign of approval in itself, Glass Animals are currently working on their début album, which, if it turns out as well as ‘Black Mambo’/’Exxus’ promise, should be an essential purchase of 2014.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7UsQIx14CE[/youtube]