BEMP
Continuing his mission to find under-the-radar gems Getintothis’ Mike Stanton calls forth three brand new tunes to get you buzzing.
Bemp are back and sounding better than ever. The Liverpool three-piece are known on the circuit for producing genre-bending tunes of wit and experimentalism and their live shows are something to behold.
Currently working on a debut album they have been taking inspiration from acts as disparate as Com Truise, The Beta Band, Prince, Nick Drake and Aphex Twin, artists whose music perfectly fits Bemp‘s musical ethos.
Perambo is a first-tease release and maybe an indication of what to expect on their album. It’s a slice of spacey weirdness with organic guitars, foaming rhythms and Radiophonic synths. An instrumental piece, Permabo is the boys of Bemp soundscaping their psychedelic asses off. Layers of cobweb-like ambience are punctuated by stabbed synth bass and tugging beats to lend an increasing heady swirl.
Try to catagorise them, I dare you, it can’t be done; Perambo is the distillation of their range and scope and shows why they are able to adapt and change, to grow and expand. This is why Bemp are one of the more exciting bands on the circuit and precisely why you should all be buying their album when it emerges, blinking in the moonlight.
L.A.D. (Press photo)
Next is some synth-funk from Reading which was surprising because they sound like they should be straight out of LA, or more accurately 1980’s LA.
Bright, glossy and unrelentingly upbeat L.A.D.’s single My Toy is all neon tubes and night drives past twinkling skyscrapers and orange hued sunsets. There is so much packed into three and a half minutes that it can be dizzying. The bent-funk synths are full of Giorgio Moroder and Herbie Hancock grooves with vocoders pinging off all over the place.
Comparisons to Madonna during her mid 80’s faze are inevitable and My Toy does have that Holiday / Get Into The Groove feel when Madonna had Nile Rodgers bringing that Chic style heat to the mixing desk.
It is testament to L.A.D.’s commitment to authenticity that they have painstakingly re-constructed this retro-80’s sound via analogue keyboards, tape loops, drum machines and fuzzy guitars.
My Toy is out now.
Sasha (Photo credit Emi O’Connell)
Electronic pop singer-songwriter Sasha has released Waterworks, an interesting and unique blend of organic soundscapes characterised by choppy vocal samples, euphoric choruses and emotive lyrics.
Channeling the likes of Rae Morris and The Japanese House, the Londoner’s lyricism reflects the nature of growing up and living in the capital, with her newest offerings highlighting the trials and tribulations faced by a millennial twenty-something.
With a laid-back jazz style croon, Sasha has created an alluring synthesized pop song that carries enough inventiveness to remain interesting and distinctive, scattering electronic bleeps and bloops liberally with pockets of bubbling synths.
Sasha says: “We wrote the song about getting drunk and telling your friends all your problems – something I have done on multiple occasions. We wanted the track to be a tongue-and-cheek, self-deprecating ‘pull yourself together’ moment. It made me excited to explore a new version of myself as an artist, looking at the complexity of adulthood and not taking myself or my music too seriously”.
Waterworks is a lilting, pulsating, and hit-ready concoction and is out now.
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