OTHER LIVES
Based in the college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, the band have been playing music together for the past five years in various incarnations. They began as an avant-garde instrumental group, then added vocals and eventually evolved into Other Lives. The landscape informs their music, from the traditional folk elements to the expansive, unhurried nature of their songs. Yet Other Lives owes as much to modern-day classicists such as Jóhann Jóhannsson and Arvo Pärt and British progressive rock as it does to its folk forefathers, drawing from a rich palette. Balancing epic grandeur with quiet restraint, the new album ‘Tamer Animals’ evokes characters and civilizations hovering between life and death, majesty and melancholy, hope and despair. Pushing boundaries seems to come quite naturally to the multi-instrumentalist bandleader Jesse Tabish, a position he asserts with un-dramatic but unrelentingly fervor: “Our band seems able to play ideas I never thought it would able to. I think I’m going to go with this and write whatever kind of music I want to write. I definitely have individual goals for what I want to accomplish in the future: more comprehensive, more thought out music. I definitely want to continue to push the line between composition and band. I would like those two worlds to collide!”.
THEME PARK
Formed by twin brothers Miles & Marcus Haughton earlier this year and quickly enrolling the services of old friends Louis Bhose (bass) and Oscar Manthorpe (guitar) the band set to work on putting together their unique brand of electronic indie pop. The songs that emerged from these early sessions proved an instant hit with the blogosphere who fell for their emotive vocals, melodic guitar lines and infectious drums one site boldly stating that the band "might present the dawning of a new era for pop music. They're that good."
VISIONS OF TREES
London duo Visions Of Trees have been turning heads a-plenty with their spaced-out sci-fi pop, and we here at Rockfeedback have become staunch fans following on from appearances as both support to Toro Y Moi and at the Rockfeedback 10th anniversary. A US EP release and tour with Memory House and other high profile support slots with the likes of Bear In Heaven under their belts, Visions of Trees' songs push beautiful melody through washes of sprawling electronics. Reminscent of everything from Kraftwerk to High Places, with a distant Bronski Beat reference here or there, these two are very much at the fore of a crop of new-wave electronica infused pop acts to grab attention into 2012.
O'Neills
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