It's Quiet, Too Quiet

By Joe Kavanagh

Barring a complete turnaround, when the time comes to record the great history of innovative modern music, 2009 will likely register little more than a brief mention.

In contrast to times past, when the word "recession" usually meant a boon time for creativity, with some of the greatest acts of the 60s, 70s and 80s all inspired directly, and indirectly, by the financial crises that affected their respective decades, with ska, punk, indie, rock'n'roll, hip hop, etc. all forged in the fires of social upheaval and poverty.

Going back still further, jazz emerged from the depths of the Great Depression and blues, by its very definition, is an entire genre whose very existence in governed by unhappiness, indigence and discontent.

Perhaps it is due to society's ever-increasing fixation on all things material, often to the detriment of everything artistic and spiritual, or simply the ongoing flux that continues to lay waste to much of the music industry, but any thoughts that the current financial crisis might signal the birth of a new generation of genres has sputtered and collapsed under the bland weight of this calendar year.

In fact, there are many who legitimately claim that hip hop was in fact the last truly original form of music, and borrowing from the flawed concept of Francis Fukuyama (made more apt given that his surname actually sounds like a hip hop diss) and his essay The End Of History; has music reached the end of the road when it comes to creating something truly original?

Quite aside from the whole notion of reinventing the wheel, truly exceptional albums in any genre have been few and far between in recent months, and the year's biggest talking point thus far has been a middle-aged choir singer, currently teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Amongst all of these clichéd clouds however, a few bright spots have broken through, showing enough promise to ensure that 2009 is not quite the year that European indie music died.

Until recently, if someone were to ask you to name something positive that emerged from mold, then most would probably mention how the rather unpleasant fungi gave birth to Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin (I would have taken cheese production either).

Whilst not completely overshadowing Fleming's feat, an emerging new act continues this trend of projecting mold in a positive light, but I am being somewhat disingenuous, because the Mold I am speaking of in this case is the picturesque town tucked away in the northwest corner of Wales.

It was here that fellow multi-instrumentalists Ritzy Bryan, and Rhydian Dafydd, met up at a local watering hole known for a clientele which included local musicians and the more bohemian elements of the town.

A friendship was born over a shared love of acts like Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and the pair soon began working on their own musical project. Fate intervened however, when Dafydd left to attend university in Manchester and Bryan moved even further afield, taking up a job as a nanny in Washington D.C.

Both continued to work on their own music and their subsequent lives may have remained mutually exclusive were it not for the fact that Dafydd contacted Bryan upon hearing that she had returned from the US, offering her a place in his latest musical project.

She gladly agreed to join what would eventually become known as Sidecar Kisses, an act whose sound borrowed equally from the indie pop of acts like the Flaming Lips and Killers, in addition to heavier bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Muse and Tool.

By 2006, the band had played in Manchester's highly acclaimed showcase, In The City, where their energetic brand of rock prompted hugely-influential underground music fanzine The Fly, to declare: "Sidecar Kisses are one of the most exciting new bands to have emerged from North Wales in recent years. They have a unique sound that starts trends as opposed to following them and in singer/guitarist Ritzy they have a real star in the making. It's a mystery to me why they haven't been snapped up by a big label yet but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Check them out."

With their star seemingly on the rise, the group high-tailed it to London, only for the wheels to fall off a short time later, due to personality clashes and increasingly different agendas among its constituent parts.

As the famous comedic line states, "a funny thing happened on the way to the theater", and somewhere in this process of writing and recording, Bryan and Dafydd crossed the threshold from being just good friends, as she later explained: "We sort of just stuck together because we had been through quite a lot together in other bands and we found ourselves to be the last remaining two of these various projects. It was when we started writing together that we finally realized, without wanting to make people feel sick, that we had so much in common, both musically and mentally. We fell in love making music."

Confident in their new project, they returned to London and established their own club night in Kilburn, which they called Club Joi De Vivre; a project that essentially acted as their own personal showcase for underground bands and deejays whom they admired, while building their own devoted following in the process.

They continued to write and record in their own tiny bedroom studio, leading to progressively more impressive results than any of their previous musical incarnations.

Trading as a three-piece - along with drummer Justin Stahely - the band made their debut in August of last year, with the release of their debut single, Austere, a tack that immediately caught the attention of music aficionados with its infectious gritty indie-pop, which calls to mind a modern day version of Tanya Donnelly's Belly and saw them referred to by esteemed music journalist, Mark Beaumont, as "hand-shandy pop".

That particular label appeared even more apt when the track's unofficial video was banned by YouTube for showing the faces of people who appeared to be, well, enjoying themselves a little too much to the song. Suffice it to say, the combination of a fresh sound and controversy had the music press buzzing.

The band's next move proved even more surprising when they chose to release an eight-track, mini-album, A Balloon Called Moaning, exclusively in Japan, simply because the label owner had shown them such loyalty from the moment he heard their demos on MySpace.

By the beginning of this year, both NME and The Guardian were hailing them as "ones to watch", and when their mini-album finally did arrive in February it didn't disappoint.

Packed with rough-edged, pop gems, superbly dynamic and emboldened with enough texture to keep the listener engaged throughout, the collection calls to mind acts as diverse as The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and Bjork, while retaining a fresh flavor all of its own.

Referred to as "dream pop" and "epic pop", the album is an outstanding opening salvo and quite possibly the most exciting album to appear in British indie this year. Making it even more alluring is the fact that it was released as a free download, which is certainly charitable given the amount of costly muck that some acts and labels are touting around as innovative, appealing music these days.

Remarkably, they also contend that they still intend to release their debut full-length album later this year, as they have continued to work on a host of new songs in their bedroom studio, only emerging to play an increasing number of live shows as their profile continues to rise.

Given their escalating fame and reputation for explosive live performances, their profile will only be enhanced by the imminent festival circuit. In fact, they are currently my tip to use such showcases to leap into the public consciousness ala The Ting Tings after last year's festival season had drawn down.

To date, Bryan and Dafydd have yet to feel the pressure of their growing prominence and workload, as she recently explained: "We've been occupying the same tiny space for many months so we're undoubtedly a massive inspiration and frustration to one another. It's a unique working and personal relationship; musically our ears flit from being almost identical to wholly at odds, so we definitely challenge each other; it keep things interesting."

Long may it continue because in music's equivalent of a fallow year, they are one of the few indie bands whose sound actually challenges convention while still managing to appeal to the masses, a synthesis that all but guarantees stardom.