Tuesday 17 February 2009

choir of young believers and laura marling @ rough trade




Last night I popped down to Rough Trade to check out Choir of Young Believers and a ‘mystery mercury nominated guest’. I was sort of holding out for M People until I remembered that did actually win it bizarrely enough. The trusty 26 and 388 buses were both non existent for over half an hour. Fortunately I arrived at Rough Trade in time for Choir of Young Believers. Unless you’re Danish you probably won’t have heard of COYB. The band have had huge success in the home country, scoring several number ones as well as collecting several awards at the Danish equivalent of the Grammys. They’re releasing their UK debut single Action/Reaction via Chess Club this week. The band had only flown in a few hours prior to the gig and looked fairly confused and the sound wasn’t great but they played a good set. They sound like a mix between Sigur Ros, Fleet Foxes and Flaming Lips if they were from Denmark rather than from Mars. At times they went a bit too serious for my liking, but I think that says more about my tastes rather than the quality of the band. The lead singer Jannis Noya Makrigiannis has a beautifully haunting voice. I could imagine loving it amongst 20,000 Danes at some Danish music festival as the music had a real big sound. The highlight of their brief set was their last two songs which included their single Action/Reaction. I could feel the place lifting, a more upbeat number than the rest of their music. A sort of Danish Flaming Lips with bongos. I definitely recommend checking the band out live and on record.

After their set everyone seemed to be filtering out so I assumed that the mystery guest had already played or wasn’t going to but as I was slowly making my way to the door I walked past this diminutive blonde girl getting a guitar out. Through a possess of elimination I realised it wasn’t Thom York or Guy Garvey so it must be Laura Marling. And she was unbelievably good. She just played three new songs with just her and her guitar but her level of song writing is unbelievable. I came away from Rough Trade with the conclusion that a) comparisons to Joni Mitchell are fair, if a little premature, and b) she must be like Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button because surely she can’t really be 19 and writing songs like she does.

http://www.myspace.com/choirofyoungbelievers

http://www.myspace.com/lauramarling

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