I’m trying not to be too optimistic, but I’ve got actual ‘stuff’ pencilled in my diary, including a real music gig and a sporting ‘thing’ in South London in June. Ironically that’s where I was about to head off to last March when the bug crisis worsened, with a charity gig in Brixton I was planning to attend cancelled just as I was deciding that I probably shouldn’t go anyway.
Opening that event would have been London 'art rock' band Familiar Action, and whilst they certainly have a duller name than last weeks NNS selection The Open Fire Pigeon Choir, they do have similar influences.
They’re a 5 piece band based around brothers Tom and Ned Armstrong, and they released this track ‘Nausea’ last year, but it’s worth featuring now because they have an album due for release in May. They claim their music attempts to ‘capture a feeling of disillusionment and urgency with a unique brand of dark and bombastic absurdist pop‘.
Of course as soon I saw the words ‘absurdist pop’ my ears and eyes lit up, and ‘Nausea’ is so leftfield that it will probably divide opinion to an extent. It opens with almost theatrical strutting glee, blasting out an atonal musical theme with apparent deliberate wilful abandon, with lyrics telling us how everything is just going to go downhill from here, a bit like the neighbour who likes to point out in April that the nights will be closing in again soon. Not sure the track quite knows how to end, but it’s really enjoyable anyway.
I think it’s the darkness of the music that makes them a little different to other Non Nordic bands of a similar ilk that I’ve written about on a Sunday – The Nature Centre from Birmingham head down the wonky pop route, Army of Moths commiserate and celebrate life in every song. But in terms of influences I’d wager all three have William D Drakes CD's / Vinyl's in their most treasured section of their music collection.
Watch the video here.
Their self titled album will be released through Full Power Records on 6th May, and I'm really looking forward to it.