Not Squares
From: Belfast, Northern Ireland
On debut single ‘Asylum’ (Richter Collective) Irish punktronic (we really do love inventing these meaningless genres !) trio Not Squares sound like they’ve been wired directly into the national grid. It’s a bundle of nervous energy, a frenzied four and a half minute sensory assault that sounds like Liars after a red bull overdose. While the lyrics won’t win any literary awards when the sound’s this infectious who’s got time to read the lyric sheet?
Every now and again something I’ll run across something that I instantly love. Coming up with new content for here on a daily basis means that I post a lot of stuff that I like, but don’t have that immediate connection with. The ones that do tend to be the bands that end up being part of our Great British Hopes series. Assuming that they are British of course.
The Sailplanes are currently based in Berlin, but luckily for me they formed in London. They make a kind of noisy, messy pop that is difficult to categorise. My first thought was to label them as “Life Without Buildings on ritalin”, but that sounded more insulting than it should. The song structures certainly resemble LWB though, stop/starting and jumping all over the place. Then some of their songs started sounding like “the best thing Nosferatu D2 never recorded”, which is fitting as they seem to have both come from the same scene.
Reading back I can see that I haven’t managed to articulate my excitement for this band at all. They really are the best thing I have encountered in a long time though. Choosing just one song to post was a hard enough battle in itself. Just download Tilted and listen for yourself. Then go to their site and download all the rest.
While searching the world wide web for exotic, interesting, or just plain brilliant bands I stumbled across a free sampler from Matador one of the worlds most exciting, innovative and interesting labels.
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