The playlist: new bands – Jack Garratt, Kid Astray, Of Empires and more

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/dec/08/the-playlist-new-bands-jack-garratt-kid-astray-of-empires

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Jack Garratt – The Love You’re Given

Jack Garratt is the latest all-singing, all-playing wunderkind: a 23-year-old musician and producer with a flexible, affecting voice and a way with electronics that will doubtless soon have him crowned the new James Blake or Jamie Woon. His debut Remnant EP came out on Island in the summer, ahead of sold-out gigs in London, and now he features on Zane Lowe’s Future 15 of 2015 . Garratt’s bass-heavy ballad-tronica has also earned the attention of producer Rick Rubin. He is Ed Sheeran, basically, but an Ed Sheeran who appears – if Garratt’s latest single, The Love You’re Given, is any measure – to be able to bring the Pharrell aspect to his recordings without the actual need of a producer like Pharrell.

Kid Astray – Back to the Ordinary

Kid Astray are a Norwegian band comprised of a piano prodigy, a model who has appeared in Italian Vogue and a junior golf champion, plus three of their friends. The sextet started when they won a radio contest for track The Mess after writing and recording it in six hours – which is impressive because it is the sort of infectious confection you might find on a Phoenix album. Their latest song, Back to the Ordinary, has garnered plaudits from Rob da Bank and Rolling Stone magazine, who have all been wowed by Kid Astray’s ebullient synth jams. They are reportedly due to record their debut album with Courteneers producer Joe Cross. But if this music thing doesn’t work out, they can always fall back on careers in golf, modelling and piano playing.

Miss Kenichi – The Ghost

Miss Kenichi is the stage name of Katrin Hahner – although taking the stage is not something that comes easily to the Berlin-based musician, who suffers from stage fright. It might be going too far to suggest that fear is a motif of her work, but it does appear to seep into her music. New album The Trail will appeal to fans of atmospheric, electronica-inflected folk, or folk-inflected electronica, and it features vocals that are delicate and cutely conversational, with a sense of sadness. Best for those with a penchant for the gloomy, the graceful and the glacial.

Dems – Muscle Memory

This electronic trio from London were recently picked by Azealia Banks to support her on her UK tour – although their down-tempo atmospherica is at odds with Banks’s sparky sound. If your music collection is short of xx-style mournathons, you could do a lot worse than bump it up with the group’s debut album, Muscle Memory, recently released by Sew in Love. It features the aching falsetto of Dan Moss (a producer at BBC 1Xtra) and the varied beats of David Gardener and Duncan Mann, who have absorbed the gamut of bass music and post-garage.

Of Empires – I Want You to Get Mad

The Brighton-based band have been given one of those end-of-year leg-ups to success as winners of MTV’s Brand New Unsigned contest. Their music is a bit glam, a bit Britpop, a bit Stones and a bit Monkeys. Of Empires might not be signed yet, but they would appear to have some weight behind them: they’ve been working with engineer Ben Thackeray (Oasis, Jamie Cullum) and mixmaster Jon Gray (The Kooks, Editors). It’s stomping, slow-motion riff-rock with snarling vocals and terrace-worthy choruses. Think the Fratellis on downers.