- Mon, 2013-02-04 16:03
I don't know about how everyone else is feeling at the moment but I need a serious palette cleanser to take me away from all this repeated play of Rhianna and The Lumineers I'm hearing on the radio. Its haunting me. Cursed omnipresence!
It seems, judging from the reactions I've received when recommending this band, peoples general thinking is quite similar to mine. I could almost hear my friends let out a collective sigh of relief when I told them to check this band out. And now we cannot seem to shut up about them.
Jagwar Ma are your Australian themed amuse-bouche. We only have three songs from them so far from their 7" release of 'Come Save Me'/'What Love' and current release 'The Throw'. Its not enough I say! These two Sydney-based gents, Jono Ma and Gabriel Winterfield (seasoned producers in their own right) have bottled a great classic sound and now sent it overseas to us .
'What Love' starts out with a mellowed, chugging heavy beat and keyboards droning down on your ears. Its chilled out yet head bopping at the same time, Simply put - there are plenty of contradictions involved here.
'Come Save Me' strikes me as everything that is great about modern electronica but soaked in good-old retro glory. Its like dragging The Monkees into modern time and putting an electronically produced beat under their bums. Even the vocals are as light and floaty as the inside of a Milky Way bar with jangling organs tripping across the top. Resisting this is pretty futile work.
'The Throw' has just been released in iTunes and is more of the sublime well-produced sounds you expect to hear from Jagwar Ma.
Echoing vocals bumble along over a big drum-based sound reminiscent of 'Step On' from the Happy Mondays all those years ago. Its easy to see where they get their influences, there is an undeniable early 90's Stone Roses vibe from this one.
It isn't as instantly catchy as 'Come Save Me' or 'What Love' and you wont find Bez dancing away in a corner to it but it is definitely well worth a listen all the same.
