New bands blog - No 1

Camden Crawl pick their favourite sounds at the moment

01 February 2012

Long-standing Camden Crawl supremo Lisa Paulon chooses some of her favourite bands of the moment. Are there any hints as to who will play Camden Crawl 2012 in May?

Funeral Suits
On a personal level, one of the most exciting things about this year is that the Crawl is growing to include a Dublin event, the weekend after our main show in London. Bands like Funeral Suits are one of the reasons why: from Dublin themselves, they’re a road-hardened quartet of brooding noise merchants, who will be going toe-to-toe with bands like White Lies and Some Velvet Morning. Their sparsely epic sound has a bit of all my favourite stuff: angular guitars, swooping synths and a contained energy to blow the top off whatever venue they’re playing. Check out their debut single ‘Could Fade’.

Echo Lake
Breathe Deep by Echo Lake

Coming off like Camera Obscura with all the sharp edges painstakingly restored, Echo Lake are a London five-piece with the crystalline vocals of Linda Jarvis at their very centre. Jangling guitars and squashed drums are layered on top of each other to create a really dense, really luminous soundscape of melody, harmony and rousing, retro rhythm. If you like your music with some variety of those pervasive adjectives like ‘lush’, ‘oceanic’ or ‘orchestral’, Echo Lake really are perfect for you. Imagine Beach House with extra muscle, and you’ll be getting the rather de luxe picture.

Engine-Earz Experiment
Dubstep with a difference, what I love about Engine-Earz Experiment is their insistence on making something new. There’s so much going on in their music, from thrumming base to booming tabla, traditional Asian vocals to your common-and-garden superbly infectious dubstep beats, that it’s hard to know where to start. Take ‘Kaliyuga’, which starts with sparkling sitar, rolls into stuttering two-step, and ends in a perfect cacophony of riffing samples. ‘Blue Moon’, on the other hand, sounds like a seriously souped-up Zero 7, with Kate Havnevik on vocals. Genuinely worth discovering – and describing – for yourself.

Iceage
Iceage - New Brigade by MASSES

Before I get all parochial, I’ll bring my last band over from Denmark. Copenhagen’s Iceage revive a late punk sound, but do so with real verve and commitment. Their live shows are already legendary, full of bust-ups and what might politely be termed brio, and their energy gives their music a punch unmatched by many of their contemporaries. Properly raucous, but as tight as last season’s skinnies and with a sure touch for melody. Iceage need to be experienced. Run, don’t walk, to your local box office and snap up a ticket.

Camden Crawl 2012 will take place around Camden, North London from 4-6 May.

Camden Crawl tickets are on sale now, with Opening Night Party tickets priced at £21.60, and Weekend Tickets priced at £83.70 (including Opening Night access) and £72.90 (5-6 May only).

VIP Tickets, including opening night admission, are priced at £162.

Click to buy Camden Crawl tickets.

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