Pre-Truck Review

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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:

Trucked

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Truck reviews will be posted here. Oh yeah!

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Shimura Curves are a South London band but don't hold that against them. If you can imagine The Pipettes fronting Kraftwerk then you may get a small inkling on how the band sounds. I can also hear hints of Sterolab in there amongst the Jesus and Mary Chain samples. The band consist of Kate (ex-The Lollies), Miss AMP, Marianna, and Anna Fielding. Apart from Kate's guitar the music just comes from the casio banks stored on their powerbook. The band had a certain charm amongst Marianna's sore throat, the heat, Anna's giggles and the computerised beats were just what was needed after the earlier disappointments in the lounge tent (I mean you Harlettes!). The songs are simple affairs although I'm not sure what they were called. Luckily I can recognise some of them from the demos I picked up. The Mary Chain samples on Just Like Friends means it's a standout for me although their ode to chocolate Sticky and Brown glides along smoothly. Shimura Curves - just like, erm, honey!

(thanks to Brainlove for the photo)

Last.fm image

If, by any chance, you are reading this, and you're also a last.fm regular - could you do us a favour? Our band picture on there is very old - it features Frances, that's how old it is. I've uploaded one of the lovely Vicki Churchill pictures, and if enough of you head over there and vote for it, that will become our band picture over there. Which will be much better. So please, point your clicks this way, and let's get last.fm to show the Shimuras in their lovely red and black and white glory!

I thank you.

Three Words!

Time Out! Woo!

Blogged Again!

A huge thank you to everyone who came down to 93 Feet East, braved the heat and made that "the best Shimuras gig yet" (apparently)! Photos of the inevitable ruin thanks to Ed Lynch-Bell

Somebody out there likes us, as we've been Blogged Again:

For some reason I do not trust songs that start with a drum roll. Of any kind.

I have not figured out why actually.

But here is a band that proved me decidedly wrong, The Shimura Curves, or " four girls from london playing pristine electro pop" which is how they describe themselves on their myspace account. Listing under Influences in the same breath are The Jesus And Mary Chain, Destiny's Child, and Sterolab. What to make of that, I have no idea, but if Im Not Afraid is a product of that mismash, then I dont really care.

The song sounds kitschly pop, what with the blatant electronic effects sprinkled everywhere and oo-ah echoing vocals, plus the lyrics are all mathematical geekery, but somehow in all this a jaunty infectious tune is created that will have you humming " i'm not afraid.. of electricity" at suspicious times. Think something like the Pipettes, but without the colourful sashaying and cutesy stuff in the music and you have this. Not as slick and luxuriant, but all honest to goodness finely tuned melodic chaos.

An interesting quality of this song lies in that while it may sound simplisitically repetitious at first, no thanks in part to that computer doo-dee that goes on happily in the background as if it were the most natural thing in the world, it merely *sounds* deceptively simple. Like the universe of singularities and infinities it sings of, the song is best taken in its beautiful whole, a simple easily appreciable whole made up of tiny invisible bits and processes that are very complicated upon closer inspection.

I like any review that talks about science and the nature of the Universe.