Named after a species of coastal bird, this multi-national, multi-inventive quartet are about as quirky as they come.
Hailing from Birmingham (singer/keyboardist Fyfe Dangerfield), Brazil (guitarist MC Lord Magrao), Canada (double bassist Aristazabal Hawkes) and the Scottish Highlands (drummer Greig Stewart), their speciality is ambitious pop blessed with a scholar’s brain and a bleeding heart.
After simultaneously wowing and confusing audiences with their wacky avant-garde stage performances and featuring in the BBC’s latest annual Top Five new acts poll conducted by music critics, Guillemots’ debut album, Through the Windowpane, has become one of the most eagerly anticipated of the summer.
But will this bird soar or plummet under the weight of expectations?
They say:
The Independent: “Emotive, epic pop.”
The Guardian: “Smooth and brassy pop is their guiltless pleasure.”
Sunday Times Culture: “Some of the most haunting and joyful music I have heard this year.”
We say:
The Beatles. Burt Bacharach. Brian Wilson. They’re all in here somewhere, but the end product is unmistakably original: idiosyncratic pop that leaves the nerve centre tingling and the mind in a maze of wonder.
The album opens in cinematic style with ‘Little Bear’, a full symphony orchestra setting the mood before accommodating soft John Cage like piano ingenuity.
Fyfe Dangerfield’s voice, fragile yet powerful, immediately brings to mind Rufus Wainwright but with advanced joyfulness in the face of despair as he sings against a thrilling crescendo of strings. This is impressive craftsmanship.
And if ‘Little Bear’ represents widescreen ambition fulfilled, ‘Made Up Love Song #43’ and ‘Trains to Brazil’ prove Guillemots’ willingness to play pop – albeit on their own innovative terms.
The former is a riveting slice of ‘60s tinged Technicolor pop, while the latter, a song about appreciating life inspired by the fatal incident involving the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes who was killed by Metropolitan police officers last year, marries surreal jazz jungle and far out experimentation (including soundbites of children playing and a ticking egg timer) to an uplifting pop sensibility.
Other noteworthy tracks include the choral vocals and rapid fire drum blasts of ‘A Samba Through in the Snowy Rain’, the wailing ghost guitars and delicate brush work of ‘If the World Ends’, and the sheer epicness of ‘Sao Paulo’, all Bernard Herrmann-esque strings, deranged samba rhythms, and chiming cathedral bells.
Intelligent, stirring and entirely bizarre, Through the Windowpane more than lives up to the hype. You’d be foolish to give it a miss.
Like this? Try these:
Brian Wilson – Smile
Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
Burt Bacharach – The Best of Burt Bacharach
RELEASED
10th July 2006
LABEL
Polydor
POSTED...
Thu 6 Jul 2006 at 10:36am
