What kind of band take their name from an Emily Dickinson poem?
The answer is an incredibly unique one called Another Sky, taken from Dickinson's 'There is another sky', which begins -
'There is another sky
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there'
.....you can read different things into these lines: a meditation on hope even in despair, or intimation of immortality in another world.
However, Another Sky possess - like the inventive Californian singer-songwriter Julia Holter - an uncanny ability to be poetic, political and powerfully dramatic at the same time.
They've been compared to the XX, Alt J and Radiohead , but I see more similarities with Holter and also Grasscut ( based in Hove but with Welsh connections).
Some music grabs you immediately,often because of a single song and I only had to listen to the likes of John Cale, Thea Gilmore and Tom Russell once to make up my mind.
At other times, it can be the opposite. When I first encountered Cohen, Dylan and even Waits I found their voices hard to take, being so unconventional ( some would say, unmusical).
It was the same with singer Catrin Vincent of Another Sky, simply because I heard the single 'Avalanche' first and the vocals sounded like a man's shrill falsetto; disturbing because it was so original.
Yet this didn't prepare me for any of their other songs!
Their music is crafted but never slick, dramatic never bombastic,owing much to their togetherness, but without that voice........
What's remarkable is they've released two singles and an e.p., but no album as yet and for each song Vincent sounds very different , like animals shape-shifting.
They are London-based and met up at Goldsmith's, attended by none other than Cale himself before he moved to New York.
Vincent is the main songwriter and has explained how politics ( in the widest sense) are never far from her concerns ( their FB page includes the band's poem against fracking). She grew up in a small, right-wing Midlands town and rebelled against every aspect.
The politics is never overt or ranty ( Vincent's a fan of Kate Tempest) and emerges particularly strongly in the singles 'Chillers' and 'Avalanche', both of which they performed on the last series of Jools Holland ( occasionally he does discover gems).
'Chillers' has a peculiar chant-like chorus and , like the other single, switches perspectives in a challenging way : from ' Acid rain, acid took you out' to ' throwing bricks at each others' egos'.
'Avalanche' is more of a righteous yell yet still moves from 'Desperation on every street corner' to 'we are the bird-song, we are the sea-bed'.
In other words, those Dickinson mysteries are always evident.
Their e.p. 'Forget Yourself' is excellent throughout : four songs, four elements.
The title track is airy and wind-swept with layers of sound, including piano and electronica, very similar to the best of Grasscut - 'seeing colours in the dark'.
'Fighting Bulls' builds up the tension like Cale's cover of 'Heartbreak Hotel' ; but guitar-driven and earthbound - 'those fighting bulls try not to die'.
'All that we do create' is internal fire : flames of creation not destruction - ' all that we do create / the world is no cold, dark place'. Breathtaking positivity in such troubled times, like Idles' album 'Joy as an act of resistance'.
Finally 'The Water Below' takes us beneath the surface growing fins like Beefheart's song, breathing where we should drown -
' I was a girl
Made of debris
Now I build a home
In my body'
They are finding their way and so much the better for it.
Poetry, passion and poignancy : that rare trinity.
SONGS SHAPE-SHIFTING
Her voice a red kite
survivor scavenger gliding
across the pasturelands,
glint of blood in eyes.
Lands and transforms
into a bull struggling
to throw knives from skin
as goaders surround.
Dashing into the sun
burning through veins,
fox away from the hunt
with its brush on fire.
Into the river, a trout
leaping for Mayflies ;
her voice a form
smooth down-stream.
The answer is an incredibly unique one called Another Sky, taken from Dickinson's 'There is another sky', which begins -
'There is another sky
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there'
.....you can read different things into these lines: a meditation on hope even in despair, or intimation of immortality in another world.
However, Another Sky possess - like the inventive Californian singer-songwriter Julia Holter - an uncanny ability to be poetic, political and powerfully dramatic at the same time.
They've been compared to the XX, Alt J and Radiohead , but I see more similarities with Holter and also Grasscut ( based in Hove but with Welsh connections).
Some music grabs you immediately,often because of a single song and I only had to listen to the likes of John Cale, Thea Gilmore and Tom Russell once to make up my mind.
At other times, it can be the opposite. When I first encountered Cohen, Dylan and even Waits I found their voices hard to take, being so unconventional ( some would say, unmusical).
It was the same with singer Catrin Vincent of Another Sky, simply because I heard the single 'Avalanche' first and the vocals sounded like a man's shrill falsetto; disturbing because it was so original.
Yet this didn't prepare me for any of their other songs!
Their music is crafted but never slick, dramatic never bombastic,owing much to their togetherness, but without that voice........
What's remarkable is they've released two singles and an e.p., but no album as yet and for each song Vincent sounds very different , like animals shape-shifting.
They are London-based and met up at Goldsmith's, attended by none other than Cale himself before he moved to New York.
Vincent is the main songwriter and has explained how politics ( in the widest sense) are never far from her concerns ( their FB page includes the band's poem against fracking). She grew up in a small, right-wing Midlands town and rebelled against every aspect.
The politics is never overt or ranty ( Vincent's a fan of Kate Tempest) and emerges particularly strongly in the singles 'Chillers' and 'Avalanche', both of which they performed on the last series of Jools Holland ( occasionally he does discover gems).
'Chillers' has a peculiar chant-like chorus and , like the other single, switches perspectives in a challenging way : from ' Acid rain, acid took you out' to ' throwing bricks at each others' egos'.
'Avalanche' is more of a righteous yell yet still moves from 'Desperation on every street corner' to 'we are the bird-song, we are the sea-bed'.
In other words, those Dickinson mysteries are always evident.
Their e.p. 'Forget Yourself' is excellent throughout : four songs, four elements.
The title track is airy and wind-swept with layers of sound, including piano and electronica, very similar to the best of Grasscut - 'seeing colours in the dark'.
'Fighting Bulls' builds up the tension like Cale's cover of 'Heartbreak Hotel' ; but guitar-driven and earthbound - 'those fighting bulls try not to die'.
'All that we do create' is internal fire : flames of creation not destruction - ' all that we do create / the world is no cold, dark place'. Breathtaking positivity in such troubled times, like Idles' album 'Joy as an act of resistance'.
Finally 'The Water Below' takes us beneath the surface growing fins like Beefheart's song, breathing where we should drown -
' I was a girl
Made of debris
Now I build a home
In my body'
They are finding their way and so much the better for it.
Poetry, passion and poignancy : that rare trinity.
SONGS SHAPE-SHIFTING
Her voice a red kite
survivor scavenger gliding
across the pasturelands,
glint of blood in eyes.
Lands and transforms
into a bull struggling
to throw knives from skin
as goaders surround.
Dashing into the sun
burning through veins,
fox away from the hunt
with its brush on fire.
Into the river, a trout
leaping for Mayflies ;
her voice a form
smooth down-stream.
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