They touch on The Cure's epicness, Joy Division's desolation, the Pixies' scrawling fire and Talking Heads' twisted pop, all without ever truly revealing their influences.I only discovered them this year, by trying to keep in touch with the British music scene through reviews in the UK media. There is so much good music from Britain at the moment, which rarely rates a mention in Australia.
Their debut album offers a meticulous hybrid of US indie rock, African pop, reggae and Irish folk, performed by four recent Ivy League graduates, who helpfully dress as recent Ivy League graduates and pose in front of blackboards and so on. That, presumably, is for the benefit of anyone unable to work out their origins from their habits of calling songs things such as Campus or writing lyrics about baroque architecture, forms of punctuation so obscure that even Lynne Truss doesn't understand them, and life among the moneyed twentysomethings of Hyannisport and Provincetown. It sounds like the winning answer to a tie-breaker beginning "the most annoying band in the world is ..."And a great review in Rolling Stone magazine which explains a bit more about the African influence
As for the African thing, Vampire Weekend cite the blog Bennloxo.com as a source of current Afro-pop; one assumes that they're also well-acquainted with Graceland. They're smart enough to know there's a political dimension to Columbia kids borrowing from Afro-pop, and their appropriations seem fairly unspecific. Those appropriations are also tucked neatly into VW's sound: "Bryn" rides the kind of triplet-based polyrhythms both India and Africa could claim, but the tune is a love-struck thing Arcade Fire might turn out. Then there's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," the most Afro of the pop tunes here, with a conga groove and register-jumping bass lines. Koenig mentions Benetton. He sings, "This feels so unnatural/Peter Gabriel, too." VW may grow out of this kind of self-consciousness, but the song is warm and well-executed — just like most of their debut.They are also one of the BBC's top picks for 2008.
They are: A Glaswegian four-piece who play vintage rock and pop with brooding guitars, like the Jesus and Mary Chain covering the Grease soundtrack.NME magazine said they had put out the best debut single since the Arctic Monkeys.
The pundits say: "Glasvegas already sound like a classic band." Jonas Woost, Last.FM head of music
They say: "There's something really authentic about a lot of doo-wop and '50s rock 'n' roll."
More from BBC
Fifteen years ago, indie mogul Alan McGee was blown away by a band who were playing third on the bill at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow.They were called Oasis, and the rest is history.
Now McGee cannot stop raving about another band he saw playing in the same slot at the same venue in 2006.
They are Glasvegas, and McGee has declared them to be the best Scottish band for 20 years.
Music weekly NME has just ranked their song Daddy's Gone as the second best track of 2007, hailing it as the most exciting debut single since the Arctic Monkeys arrived.
The group have even got the seal of approval from Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of their number one musical hero.
Glasvegas draw on rockabilly and pop from the 1950s and '60s, using a backdrop of brooding guitars to create their own wall of sound, a bit like the Jesus and Mary Chain playing the Grease soundtrack.
Singer James Allan says the group started by taking their lead from classic doo-wop groups.
The sound I get with the guitars is to make it sound like an orchestra
James Allan"It's a minimalist approach to the rhythm, it's really simple, but that simplicity leaves a lot of room for other things," he says.
"And the other things... I really like a lot of orchestral music and classical music. I think that can be a good furious backdrop to something.
"A lot of the sound that I get with the guitars is to make it sound like an orchestra. But we've only got the bass, my guitar and his guitar."
His bandmates are his cousin Rab Allan on guitar, bassist Paul Donoguhe and drummer Caroline McKay.
Glasvegas are currently fielding offers from many record labelsDaddy's Gone, a heartbreaking message to an absent father, has given the first glimpse of the emotional power of James' songwriting.
The lyrics begin: "How you are my hero/ How you're never here though/ Remember times when you put me on your shoulders/ How I wish that it was forever you would hold us."
They carry on in the same heart-rending vein. When the song is brought up, James immediately interjects: "I knew you were going to ask that.
"So Daddy's Gone, is that through personal experience? That's what you were going to ask, yeah?"
Well, yes.
"Yeah, some of it's through personal experience. And there's other stuff that I've just noticed through my friends' families. I don't really know a lot of families where the mum and dad are still together."
The point of the song, James says, is not wanting to be 50 and "having to regret everything".
The band have supported Dirty Pretty Things and Ian BrownDaddy's Gone was put on MySpace and soon made its way to a friend of Lisa Marie Presley.
Elvis's daughter liked it so much that she called the band up and asked them to meet her for a drink when she was in Edinburgh recently.
"It was a really nice night," James says.
"It's quite far out. It makes the world feel a bit smaller than it is because she's heard something that I've recorded in my bedroom, and how the hell did that get to Lisa Marie Presley?"
So what did she say?
"I'll not go into exactly what was spoke about," James says. "But it was pretty far out man. It was nothing to do with music."
Despite having so many fans in high places, Glasvegas are still unsigned. But that situation is unlikely to last long. Which labels are trying to secure their signatures?
"Every label I've ever heard of," James replies. "Does that answer that?"
Yep, they are going to be huge!
Gotye is Wally De Backer. He plays drums, percussion and piano, and he writes, sings and produces tracks at his home, in Mentone, Victoria, Australia. Gotye’s sound is a melting pot of samples from sources far and wide, mixed with Wally’s home recorded sounds to form original songs that are as much influenced by the ’80’s British electro of Depeche Mode and mock-lounge pop of Roxy Music, as the scratchy sounds of old noir soundtracks and majestic orchestras of John Barry and Henry Mancini.Oh yeah!
The cut’n'paste approach of hip-hop djs also figures prominently in the arrangements, inspired especially by the musicality of San Francisco’s finest sample- composers, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. The results are songs that both reference and incorporate styles and sounds of the past, while showcasing Wally’s unique songwriting in a broad web of sonic environments. Wally songs display the diversity of his listening interests, incorporating sounds from a wide spectrum of sources. They encompass a variety of styles, tempos and textures in their mix of organic and electronic sources, experimenting with form and tone while nevertheless clearly exhibiting Wally’s love of pop music (in any of its manifestations and mutations over the last half a century).
