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wild beasts
wild beasts interview
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Untamed melody.

'Wild beast' is the English translation of 'fauve' - the designation assigned to an early twentieth century French painting movement with a reputation for exaggerated brush strokes and ultra-vivid colour. In that sense at least, audaciously flamboyant Cumbrian indie rock quartet Wild Beasts are well named. Already the recipients of extensive next-big-thing column inches and a fat contract from Domino Records, in singer Hayden Thorpe Wild Beasts possess one of the UK's most distinctive, nay eccentric, vocal stylists. Soaring from brusque bark to melodramatic falsetto at the twitch of a larynx, he's been compared to everyone from Tiny Tim to Kate Bush. 'The voice' tended to polarize early audiences, however. "We anticipated the reaction even before anyone had heard it, so it must have been a shock to us too, at first!" Thorpe admits. "We think it's funny when people call it 'the voice'. It's just what happens when I open my mouth. I think it sounds different in my head to how other people hear it."



Formed in 2002 by Thorpe and guitarist Ben Little at school in Kendal, the band eventually outgrew somnolent Lakeland, relocating to Leeds in 2005 with drummer Chris 'Bert' Talbot and bassist Tommy Fleming now on board. Their three EPs to date have prompted comparisons with early '80s Postcard Records pashas Orange Juice, but any resemblance is, they claim, purely coincidental. "The first time we heard Orange Juice was when the people at Domino gave us a compilation they were releasing", asserts Fleming. "We don't have any overt reference points."



The band's curiously opaque lyrics seem equally without precedent. Thorpe remains enigmatic about the subtext of songs called things like Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants, however. "The songs come from millions of sources. Everyday life, TV, books, film, newspapers, cigarette packets, muesli boxes... it's very hard to explain it. You wouldn't want to explain it and take the magic away from it."

Having toured extensively with the likes of Maximo Park and Jack Peñate, Wild Beasts are currently plotting a debut album which promises yet more uncompromising idiosyncrasy. As Thorpe puts it, "Things that are challenging and take time perhaps last longer."


David Sheppard 05 July 07
Wild Beasts were filmed at Manchester International Festival. Brave Bulging Bouyant Clairvoyants and Through Dark Night are available now on Bad Sneakers Records. See them play the Latitude Festival on 15 July 07.
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