The Wharves
It’s week eight in Unknown Pleasures corner, where Getintothis’ new music editor Patrick Clarke has been rooting round the web for another triple threat of tantalising tracks.
Getintothis had nothing but praise for Festival No. 6 last month, but standing out even on that luminary line up were The Wharves, the London trio whose latest sampler from upcoming debut album At Bay (out November 3) is something very special indeed.
The track, Renew, injects smatterings of garage-rock into a Warpaint drift of sensual psych, a viscous bassline winding its way round wistful, evocative guitars which together underpin a breathtaking joint vocal. Things only hit a higher plane at the sensational chorus, the title repeated in euphoric afrain as the glorious instrumental dovetails into the most captivating of cacophonies. An incredibe sample for what’s likely to be one of the year’s standout debuts.
Where The Wharves drift with effortless grace, fellow Londoners Felt Tip take a spikier road to guitar-pop finesse, Simple Things – the title track from their latest EP – adopting Gang of Four barbs with a danceable infusion akin to the approach of spiritual predecessors Franz Ferdinand.
Felt Tip
As a meandering intro gives way to a scratchy lurch of guitars the band’s post-punk debts are quite evident, yet there’s an abundance to enjoy in that inducing off-kilter guitar attack and James Tyler’s affably louche vocal – evocative again of Alex Kapranos.
This is, in a sense, revivalism, but revivalism at its best, redolent of the noughties post-punk re appropriation – an underrated era still relatively unmined for its virtues.
Last of all the New Zealand city of Dunedin’s astoundingly fertile underground has risen to the surface in force by virtue of new compilation TEMPORARY: Selections from the Dunedin’s Pop Underground, a thirteen-track compilation from Fishrider Records of the city’s finest offerings, which sees it’s UK release this week.
Featuring a magazine written by a former Unknown Pleasure – The June Brides’ Phil Wilson – the album boasts no scent of filler, each track it’s own tightly contained mini-masterpiece. Opposite Sex‘s Supermarket for example annexes quaint Syd Barret surrealism to Deerhoof‘s erratic stumbles, while The Prophet Hens turn to bijou synths and beguiling shoegaze for All Over the World.
This is, in short one of those compilations, an ensnaring introduction and suitable surmise of a vibrant scene most likely unheard of by many of this hemisphere – a must-listen for any after musical expansion.
