Friday 3 April 2009

Local Natives - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

At a time when the spirit for American folk pop artists producing beautiful melancholic layered harmonies in the manner of Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver is in the ascendancy, Local Natives could be the next in line to capitalise on the interest in such music.

Local Natives hail from Silverlake, California. They have just completed a gruelling nine shows in four days at SXSW in Austin, Texas. The band have a strong and certain rhythmic tribalism about them; it is therefore no great surprise to see Warning Sign, the Talking Heads song posted as a cover version on their Myspace. It is this sense of musical movement in Local Natives sound that sets them apart from others in their peer group. Take Airplanes where driving piano and skittering train track percussion gives way to a solid thumping beat and a beautiful falsetto. Or Stranger Things where pounding drums and soaring instrumentation gives just a hint of a less bombastic Arcade Fire.

The band will release an album Gorilla Manor, named after their experience of writing the record whilst living together in one house. The artwork for the album is likely to be the bands own design, with three of the band having worked in the graphic design field.

Local Natives have also uploaded a wonderful percussive tree banging version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic Cecilia onto You Tube that demands your attention; it can be viewed below.

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