There was a time when my world was filled with darkness (darkness, darkness)
Went to see electropop band Miike Snow at Venue on Granville last night. I was only introduced to these guys this week (it seems I was a bit slow on the uptake; today they are listed as the most blogged artist on The Hype Machine), but they managed to absolutely floor me. The band is made up of New York musician/producer Andrew Wyatt and the Swedish producing team of Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, aka Bloodshy & Avant — the masterminds behind Britney Spears’ 2004 hit, “Toxic”.
The trio came onstage (along with some additional touring members), all dressed in identical leather jackets and jeans with mysterious white masks hiding their faces. After a few songs, I was starting to think that they were going to remain anonymous for the entire night, but they skillfully removed the masks about halfway through their set, at which point I realized that lead singer Andrew Wyatt had been standing beside me during opener Jack Peñate’s set — I remember noticing him for his height and the fact that he looked suspiciously like Devendra Banhart.
This album is definitely making it onto my list of pleasant surprises of the year, and their mesmerizing performance last night is only making me love it even more. Give these tracks a spin and watch this clip for the song “Burial” — one of the most original videos I have seen in a long time. In case you are at all confused by the significance of the jackalope image, that’s Miike Snow’s logo.
mp3: Miike Snow - Animal from Miike Snow
mp3: Miike Snow - Black & Blue from Miike Snow
British singer Jack Peñate put on a fantastic set as well, and it’s a crying shame that so few people have heard of him on this side of the Atlantic. You could tell that it was out of the norm for him to be playing to such a small crowd, but he still gave his all, which means we were treated with his awesome dance moves — check them out below in his video for “Be the One”.
mp3: Jack Peñate - Pull My Heart Away from Everything is New
