Nothing about Foon Yap is straight forward. She is a violinist yet grew up hating the instrument. She is classically trained yet focuses her energies on working on folk and when with her band The Roar, a ‘disco spandex celebration’. She is tiny in stature – I have twice seen her piggybacked around the room by Woodpigeon’s Mark Hamilton – yet clearly has the spirit of a grizzly bear.

Having found her feet with Calgary folk collective Woodpigeon, Foon is now exploring other avenues. Her Darling EP is delicate to the point of being brittle in its beauty. All three tracks begin tentatively and maintain a sense of almost tangible fragility and precision in their execution, her plucked and sweeping strings work from Woodpigeon combined with more than a nod to her Chinese heritage. It’s beautiful and stops you in your tracks; you fear to move or even breathe, afraid that any movement may cause it to shatter into a million fragments.

Contrast all that with Foon Yap & The Roar. Gone is the label of ‘Chinese Traditional / Folk / Classical’ which her solo MySpace site applies to her work, replaced with ‘Vampire Sex Metal Disco’. Their EP The Mes, The Mys and The Swimming Pool kicks off innocently enough with the short, electro folk of Introduction and then blows your head off with the manic I Come. There’s barely time to recover during the Talking Headsy Kiiimchee before she has you by the throat again in the synth driven La Foon Nikita. All of your perceived notions about Foon are torn down in less than the eleven minutes of maelstrom which the EP contains. Pow! Thank God for Foon Yap.

Foon Yap waits demurely here.

Foon Yap & The Roar are waiting to get you here.

Brooklyn again. This time it’s Quiet Lights who are set to create a stir, though they seem determined to go about it in an understated manner. The ‘About’ page of their website reveals that they are ‘Quiet Lights from Brooklyn, NY.’ Their Facebook page reveals that they are made up of Chris Curtis, Robin Fowler, Nikhil Kamineni, Yseult Tyler and Marcus Smith. Marcus has revealed that he is formerly of Gods & Queens and Argentine. And that’s your lot; beyond that all you have is the music. Which is a good thing.

Blending the sonic wall-of-sound of early 90s shoegaze with the current lurching haziness of dream pop, their sound is ethereal and translucent yet pressing and powerful. We Live In Balloons in particular hits the nail they seem to be aiming at squarely on the head.

While they busy themselves with applying the finishing touches to their debut album, they have released a free sample e.p. Go get it here, because it’s glorious and take five to watch their video for Twice Today.

Twice Today from Quiet Lights on Vimeo.

There’s not much disco involved in Lunchtime Disco Club but there’s plenty of folky-pop, rasping trumpets and honking sax. Principally the organ by which Leeds based Zoe Eady breathes life into her songs, Lunchtime Disco Club have, in their brief existence, already performed at the Isle of Wight festival and the recent Live At Leeds all-dayer.

Their short lifespan has also seen a series of what they call ‘eras’:  the era of ‘Casio Keyboard’; the era of ‘Acoustic Guitar Only’ and the era of ‘Vast Brass Section’, before finally settling on their present sound, which you can get an earful of on their eponymous EP through LifeSounds Records.

Nestling somewhere between the pathos of Kathryn Williams and the off-kilter quirk of Erin McKeown, its worth two and a half quid of anybody’s money.

Lunchtime Disco Club can be found here.

Their eponymous EP can be purchased here.

Scott Remila of Le Pigeon has history. Born in Paris, France and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada, he has played guitar, drums and now bass, which he describes as ‘the ultimate weapon: rhythm AND melody all rolled up into one awesome instrument.’

His route from playing covers of Pink Floyd while at school to Le Pigeon can best be described by Scott himself:
‘I got involved with the Welland/St.Catharine’s scene in my first little band, Mended. We sounded like Niagara’s answer to Thrush Hermit/Hardship Post/Eric’s Trip and ended up releasing a cassette called The Citrus e.p.  Through Mended’s gigs I ended up meeting a fellow St. Catharines Indie rock guy named John Crossingham, who I would eventually form Raising the Fawn with. We played together for about 8-plus years and put out a handful of records I’m really proud of. Sonic Unyon was our label and we toured quite a bit, sharing the stage with such bands as Sebadoh, the Weakerthans, Calexico, Broken Social Scene and Mogwai to name a few. In the last three to four years of RTF we were joined by our longest-serving drummer, Dylan Green. In that time we had all packed up and moved to the big city (Toronto)’

‘Dylan and I now play in a band called City and Colour and have been touring quite a lot over the past two years.  This has been by far the most fun any of us has had on the road. We crack each other up almost constantly, which is a very good thing when you’re 3,000 miles from your home, bed, girlfriend, cat etc.’

‘I also play in a band called The Violet Archers, the project of former Rheostatic, and current pal, Tim Vesely. We tend not to tour a whole lot but we have two records out which we’re very proud of.’

So, finally, Le Pigeon…

‘The name comes from the fact that I genuinely really like pigeons. I grew up a major bird enthusiast, always looking up and listening for the different calls and such. And, in my opinion, it just sounds better in French.’

‘Well everything I have previously mentioned has gotten me to where I’m currently at. Struggling and procrastinating my way through my own bunch of songs. I’ve got endless little scraps of verses or chunks of choruses that I just need to be studious about and start really crafting.
The only tracks I’ve really released (to date) are on the Friends In Bellwoods compilations, which are fundraisers for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank. These compilations are curated by James Bunton and Casey Mecija from Totonto’s Ohbijou.’

‘Friends in Bellwoods 1 had a song of mine called On Their Own, which was just a 4-track recording done in a living room. Short and sweet, nothing fancy, just guitar and several layers of my own voice.’

‘When it came time to record for the next compilation, I really got quite focused and really drafted and crafted a song structure and many of the parts. It felt really good, and when it came time to record the song (Freezing Rain) I enlisted Dylan to play drums and Tim to play bass and keys, and I’d sing and play guitars. James was brought on a producer/cheer leader and we got together at Don Kerr’s Red Rooster basement studio for a nice Saturday afternoon. Everything came together very quickly and smoothly. It felt great to get it done!’

‘I’m aiming to have an e.p. or full-length of Le Pigeon songs early next year. I plan to work on it when I’m not on the road or in the studio with City and Colour.’

Take a listen to Freezing Rain here:

Freezing Rain

Or visit Le Pigeon ici.

Honeybear is naturally nomadic; a few months after moving from Washington State to L.A. he was becoming restless. Pausing just long enough to pick up a ukulele, he was off again and a few weeks later, in Thousand Oaks California, he ran into a band called the Consonant C from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Both he and the band showed up at the venue at wrong time and the show was already over so they climbed to the top of a hill where the band played an acoustic set and encouraged him to play the first two songs he had written. On the strength of that evening, they invited him to visit Calgary any time.

Back home in L.A. his itchy feet soon returned. Planes, trains, cars, and one speed-freak-trucker later he arrived in Calgary. A few days stop became a few months and one stay became many.

Crazy things happened and he went absent for awhile but now he’s back and is currently applying the finishing touches to his debut EP. A culmination of his development from more traditional folk music to incorporate ambient and pop influences, it opens with a combination of fire crackling and water dripping as one seamless sound and that idea of harmony is carried throughout as he lonesomely croons about treacherous women and feelings of oppression but always finding balance between dark and light.

Take a listen: Honeybear – Pocketful of Stones

As mentioned, HoneyBear is currently working on his debut e.p. Viral Linguistics, a collaboration between musician Honeybear and visual artist Heather Kai Smith. Heather makes drawings calling back to the innocent illustrations of the 1950’s and 60’s.

The fruit of the project will be a 40 page sketchbook with 10 drawings of Heather’s scattered amongst the pages. The cover will be drawn by Heather, then silkscreened and assembled by Honeybear. Included will be two download codes (one for the notebook’s owner and one to give to a friend) for a 6-track collection of music by Honeybear.

To help fund this ambitious project, visit Honeybear’s proposal at Kickstarter.com

Frustrated by too much of the same old same old, and inspired by childhood memories of listening to his dad play the White Album and Harvest, James Riggall decided to make some music of his own. The Broken Broadcast is an alias for that music; fractured, melancholic and blurry.

Soya Milk Sea, The Broken Broadcast’s debut mini-album, recorded in a friend’s basement, has just been released by Pilot Records and documents a burgeoning song-writing talent. By track four, Dead Leaves, Riggall has managed to inject an impressive sense of space into his music.  By track 5, Nurse Your Swollen Limbs, a sparsely strummed guitar, a repeated two-note piano refrain and an occasionally hit snare drum, you get the feeling that Riggall has begun to capture perfectly what he set out to achieve. His voice only adds to the slightly unsettling feel of the music, being at once desolately mournful and sweetly melodic.

By the end of the album, you’re wishing you had a recording studio and a string section on hand – if this album was orchestrated, it would be massive. As it stands, it is a remarkable debut. Imagine a stripped back early Grizzly Bear and you’re well on your way.

Soya Milk Sea is available now here.

The Broken Broadcast MySpace is here.

Way back in the mists of time, when Suitcase Orchestra first crawled, blinking in the light,  from the primordial swamps, chamber pop maestro Andrew Morgan recommended we check out Julie London. Well, we knew all about the delights of ‘Cry Me A River’ and sadly, Julie is no longer with us so we’ve made it our business to find a more than suitable replacement.

Described by someone at Radio 2 as a ‘real old school beauty’, Louise Hull does indeed have more than a hint of days gone by about her with her 1950’s film star looks and her rich, dark voice which recalls the aforementioned Miss London and a whole host of other female jazzers. She looks and sounds as if she should have a cigarette perched delicately in a cigarette holder coiling wisps of smoke around her face as she sings.

But, for all of the jazz imagery and vocals, her music has a more folky feel with picked guitar, some soft strings and a light dusting of xylophone. It’s the sort of thing Jools Holland might well have had on Later had he not lost his way.

Having started out in a four piece a cappella group and a folk duo, Louise started her solo career with an ambitious solo tour of America. Since then she has supported Martha Wainwright and Alessi’s Ark and recorded an album with Roxy Music producer John Anthony. She is currently working on an E.P. which should see daylight soon.

In the meantime, enjoy a slow waltz with someone special to this offering or check out Louise’s MySpace here.

Christopher-and-I -  click to listen

The second of our features on new bands who deserve to be heard sooner rather than later.

The Woodlands are married couple Hannah and Samuel Robertson and they share a hometown of Portland, Oregon with the similarly sublime Horse Feathers. Like Horse Feathers they make a fragile sounding folk-pop sound only with Hannah’s whispered vocals being even more delicate.

Earlier this year, they released their self-titled debut album which they recorded in what they call ‘a homemade studio fort of blankets and pillows’.

The album is a beautifully simplistic and intimate autumnal affair, a theme reflected in their video for Can We Stay, directed by James Wilson. Rather than me waffle on at length about how great they sound, you really ought to just click, stick it on full screen mode and listen.

Can We Stay from The Woodlands on Vimeo.

The album is available through iTunes and eMusic and The Woodlands Myspace site is here.

You Were Into Them First is a series aiming  to give new bands the limelight we feel they deserve. The first of the series focuses on Edinburgh’s Eagleowl.

Named because an eagleowl can kill a woodpigeon (Eagleowl’s Malcolm Benzie used to work in a record shop with Woodpigeon’s Mark Hamilton apparently, though the rivalry in band names is friendly), Eagleowl describe themselves as a lo-fi post-folk ensemble. If you aren’t sure what that means, this may be easier: Eagleowl are the Spacemen 3 of folk. Simple looping guitar riffs played over a woozy drone of fuzzy strings, breathy, sometimes murmured, vocals, all done to hypnotic effect. On the band’s website, they claim to believe in doing things right, rather than doing things fast – this appears to apply to both the quality of their output and the pace of their songs.

Like Spacemen 3, some of the music is gently mesmerising while other songs like This Is Not Your Lucky Day have a pulsing air of menace about them. Their new single, Sleep the Winter, falls into the former category – it’s a whispered lullaby moving at a glacial pace, which draws you slowly into its titular hibernation.

Sleep The Winter follows their debut EP, For The Thoughts You Never Had, which, to give you an idea of the attention to detail that’s going on here, was released as a limited edition CD with screen printed hand folded card sleeve. That’s now sold out in its physical form, but can still be downloaded from the usual sources. It features Motherfucker which is so positively poppy, by Eagleowl standards, that it even has a drum beat. The titles of the other tracks on the E.P. – Sleeptide, Blanket and Blackout – hint at a desire to be smothered and unconscious which is mirrored in the somnambulant nature of the music.

December the 11^th sees them play at the Bowery in Edinburgh to mark the release of Sleep The Winter, followed by  an appearance at the Sick Kids Sunday charity all dayer, at the GRV in Edinburgh on Suday 31^st January alongside an impressive line-up which includes James Yorkston & Adrian Crowley’s tribute to Daniel Johnston.

Sleep The Winter is released by Kilter on December 11^th. Check that out here.

Eagleowl’s Myspace is here.