The Texas-Germany Connection

(thanks to my dad for the links)

We're on the radio in Texas! KOOP, 91.7 in Austin has been playing Noyfriend.

Also, apparently we're going down a storm in Germany, or at least according to the German Rolling Stone Messageboard. Sehr gutt!

kommen aus dem süden londons, sind vier damen (aaah...) und ihre musik gilt als eine mixtur aus den pipettes, kraftwerk, stereolab und jesus and mary chain.

I think that's good? Ja? I think I see the German for "Stereolab" in there. ;-)

Oh, and GreenPeaNess have said some Nice Things about Noyfriend's Krautrock Connection:

It's been pretty difficult to ignore the motorik beat's glorious return to indie-pop prominence, but it's certainly been possible; I honestly do like all those bands like the Early Years and Emperor Machine, but it's pretty much impossible to see any frivolity in their approach to music-making whatsoever, and in light of the way frivolity kinda sorta defines every action that I've ever taken I just don't find myself fiending for them. I'm only bringing this void up, of course, because the Shimura Curves seem to have swooped in to fill it quite nicely - Tom over at the wholly essential Indie MP3 characterized them as "the Pipettes fronting Kraftwerk", a description of such elegant accuracy that it practically puts me in literal pain to hang those quote marks around it. What's revelatory about the Curves (or at least "revelatory" in that gloriously ephemeral winding-down-summer sense), after all, is the way they're able to pick up threads of the motorik sound which, in the hands of a band more interested in righteousness than awesomeness, would probably end up sounding like study hall rather than recess; the organ on "Noyfriend", for instance, may basically only be distinct for the way it sustains itself, but it stands in such striking, warm opposition to the relentless urgency of the beat or the achingly bloodless intonation of the vocals that it pretty much had me cheering like a jackass to nobody in particular as much as any song I've heard since "Pull Shapes". I mean, there's your answer as to why this band sure feels remarkable - they're hardly the only people turning their hip40something cousins' record collections into something for the chi'ren, but damned if anyone else is doing it with these records, let alone doing it so ridiculously well. (Click here to buy The Kids At The Club, an outstanding recent collection of indie-pop released by How Does It Feel Records featuring "Noyfriend", directly from the label)

Hello, Mum, I'm On The Telly!

Looks like our BBC Debut will be happening on Wednesday, 13th September. BBC 1 Breakfast show. Get up early! (Or set your videos.)

Well, Knock Me Down With A Feather!

I never thought in a million years that Drowned In Sound would say nice things about us. And yet... they do!

On first impressions, Shimura Curves look like The Pipettes' older and infinitely wiser sisters, yet musically they couldn't be any further apart if they tried. 'Stronger', their side of this seven-inch single, is by far the stronger of the two tracks on offer. Sounding like outcasts from the Creation school of stargazing (notice we didn't mention anything to with looking at one's feet), Shimura Curves recall the blissful Scar era of Lush alongside more palatable, hazy effects-laden harmonisers such as Spirea X or Sambassadeur, and on this evidence are definitely worth keeping an out for.

Spirea X!!!! Lush!!!! I mean... SPIREA X!!!!!

::spins around happily until she falls down drunk and giddy::

(Yeah, I know I said I wasn't reading our press any more. But I just found that while browsing DiS for giggles.)

Single Out Today!

Errrr... apparently.



Available from Bumlove direct - £3.99 + £1 p+p to brainlove7club@gmail.com - or from these shops around the country:

Bangor - Spillers
Bath - Replay
Birmingham - Tempest / Swordfish
Brighton - Rounder Records
Bristol - Replay / Imperial
Glasgow - Melody Bar
Leeds - Jumbo
Liverpool - Probe Records
London - Sister Ray / City 16 / Lik+Neon / Beats Workin' / Rough Trade / Puregroove
Manchester - Piccadilly Records
Nottingham - Selectadisc
Oxford - Fopp / Polar Bear

And a few other places that I forget... Norwich, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and York maybe...

Drink Pink

Yes, I know. Two gigs in two days, are we mad?

Upcoming...

Plan B

OK, the problem wasn't getting Plan B to pay attention... the problem was finding a Plan B writer (who liked girlpop) who hadn't actually *been* in Shimura Curves. The Lex admirably steps up to bat:

Also having relationship difficulties is Kelly Rowland – but she can at least comfort herself with the fact that the astonishing ‘Gotsta Go’ (Sony) is the first song on which she’s convinced as a viable solo artist. Over fuzzy crunk synths, she delivers an imperious vocal performance, her contralto quivering as the song builds to its stunning wordless hook: a “WO-OH! WO-OH! WO-OH! WO-OH!” filled with fire and ice and pride and dread, Rowland tearing herself in two because she loves him but knows she has to leave him.

She could do worse than taking a leaf out of Shimura Curves’ book. ‘Stronger’ (Brainlove) is the sound of scales falling from their eyes and blossoming into gorgeously pretty harmonies and twinkling music box melodies. The ladies about town intone the killer line – “My sin wasn’t that I was angry or was hateful; it was that you wanted to save me, and I wasn’t grateful” (cue climactic, swelling strings) – with serenity and self-sufficiency, and the song takes its place with ease alongside those other pop anthems to female emotional liberation of the same title by Britney and the Sugababes.

How the bloggers saw it...

Nothing But Green Lights:

Shimura Curves | Relaxed All Girl Lap-pop harmony. The predatory dance of a London girl wielding a Casio mind-warp device and a wah-wah pedal.

Oxford Bands:

All-girl outfit Shimura Curves force us into gently joyful convulsions to their marvellously sugary sweet pop and mellow harmonies. Led by a simple drum loop on a laptop and straightforward chords dipped in lovely warm effects from guitarist Kate St.Claire, they put in a charming performance capped by some disarmingly girly dance routines.

Clean Skies:

Saw: Shimura Curves and Anat Ben David. Girly electropop/art-rock with clever words and infectious beats. Very enjoyable the both.

Maps Magazine:

so it's over to the Lounge Tent for the sparkly Shangri-Las meets casio keyboards pop of Shimura Curves. I'm slightly apprehensive about reviewing them, as they count amongst their number some of my favourite music writers - suffice to say they're ace and you should go and see them at the next available opportunity.

Sweeping The Nation:

If Emmy is the wolf pawing away at the wooden exterior of the preset female singer-songwriter door, back in the Lounge tent Shimura Curves are the electro black sheep of this apparent Girl Group Revival. Turning scrappiness into an artform in the way Girlfriendo used to do before they turned tail and became Love Is All, the four women something-akin-to-harmonise to Powerbook loops and the odd distorted guitar. It's probable they don't yet have a better song than the Mary Chain-reappropriating Just Like Friends that was much loved around here from their Myspace and the don't-say-twee charm of the live show perhaps doesn't translate in this atmosphere but there's something going on here that'll split opinion but very much be worth watching over time, for our money. It's also a much more agreeable use of female vocals over electronic methods than the touted Persil will deliver over on the Truck stage later, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

OK, that's as far as I got down Google before the links degenerated into truck-driving mathematicians talking about the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture...

Pre-Truck Review

www.soundsxp.com

With a name like Shimura Curves you might have expected math-rock (you knew it was the solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem, didn’t you, number geeks?). It’s actually laptop pop with a big dose of Jesus and Mary Chain distortion pedal which confuses the senses in a good way. Normally a fourpiece but today three girls and a pepper plant (don’t ask…) they sing and dance to the electro rhythms of ‘I Capture the Castle’ and have probably penned the only paean to asparagus in ‘Sticky and Brown’ (I heard it as 'asparagus' though it seems about chocolate and may have been announced in a chocoholic's denial moment*). I have a personal prejudice about songs about horrible Hoxton (‘Mother’) but equilibrium is more than reestablished with the Strokes-meet-synths metronymic mash of ‘My Friend’. Their forthcoming single on Brainlove Records will definitely be worth hearing.

*Actually, I said Artichokes (in reference to "Atoms For Peace" but what's a vegetable between friends?)

Also, backstage photo by Jill: