Why Your New Favourite Band Should Be Babaganouj

Customers, let’s face it – things are pretty fucked all over. Now, the mere fact you’re reading something like this suggests you may find some solace or comfort in something musical. That can work in a couple of ways – there are artists and/or songs that can outline or express your frustrations, while other can simply fulfil the need to forget about said tribulations for three-and-a-bit minutes. There’s a little of column (a) and a little of column (b) among the following.

You might even need a new favourite band, so may we suggest Babaganouj. Their three EPs of last year had moments of scruffy charm, but they open 2017 with Star (My Bedroom), as the title suggests, an absolutely stellar piece of boy/girl fuzzy pop, a leap from what has gone before. Even the Thomas Evans clip looks right – just because you’re working on the cheap, doesn’t mean you can’t be clever. Some in the know were giving the nod and wink to keep an eye on them last year, double that as of now. Bandwagon about to start rolling. 

However, if you want somebody more directly addressing the world’s ills – even if obliquely rather than plain bleakly – Father John Misty was always going to be your man. His weary and somewhat jaundiced eye on the human condition is all over Pure Comedy (Sub Pop) as what starts off sounding like the best song Elton John never wrote in 1973 then unfurls, observing man’s “periodic iron deficiency” taking us from hunter gathering to despairing about the choices the species is now making. Supplementary and complementary images in the video veer from the fastest-swimming sperm not necessarily being the best, through to Pepe The Frog and that orange guy who seems intent on single-handedly fucking the world. Sure, it’s a little too obvious, and a little too self-conscious as times – but maybe that’s exactly what we need. 

What sort of comment it makes on the world that one of the most impatiently awaited albums of the year is by a sporadically-appearing band of cartoon characters. Admittedly, cartoon characters with their own Twitter accounts and book deals. Gorillaz are also aware of the temper of the times, with Hallelujah Money (Parlophone) a sadly pretty accurate title as to what the world is finding important. New guest vocalist Benjamin Clementine comes with an ironic gospel feeling, as mammon is certainly worshipped over God, and some disturbing images float by in the background. Oh, and Noodles. 

Back where the song is the currency and the message might be secondary, The Pink Tiles can apparently go from buzzy pop with neat harmonies to something a bit gruntier and rockier. Ah, variety! For Tomorrow (Pink Tiles Sux) is from that more melodic end, and could come from 1967, 1978, or 1990 – where they’d be a terrific support band for The Hummingbirds. Which is a high compliment. Be interesting to watch if they lean more one way than the other, but as it stands this end of their oeuvre goes better than alright.

Another that’s evolved or simply changed with every release is Goldfrapp. Now with windswept and barren backdrops, the duo’s voice of the eponymous Alison is still a distinctive and glorious thing, but after edging toward and almost pastoral folkiness with occasional machine for the last couple of albums, Anymore (Mute) is very much back to an purring synthesised base – although different again, and yes you can dance to it – but possibly only if you’re doing The Robot. She/they/it is/are still fabulous though. 

As far as The April Family are concerned it’s probably up to your personal taste whether it needs the ‘alt’ in front of the ‘country’. There’s a classic old Nashville twang as Casey Atkins guitar unspools through Patsy Cline Times Two (Big Radio), and Kylie Whitney’s voice keens in the prescribed another-lonesome-night manner. But somewhere between her glorious dreadlocks and that guitar taking some more filigreed turns, there is a modern more self-aware edge to it, making it that more individual – and good. Although, Cline x2 you say? Does that mean she goes out walking after midnight, then again at 2am? Shut up, that joke would slay ‘em at the Grand Ole Opry.

There’s a dark irony in the Fractures band name apparently, with a serious neck injury to Mark Zito leaving him confined to the Mornington Peninsula as he constructed Lowcast (Caroline). Coming on like a Simon & Garfunkel stroll with added synths, it builds to something more celebratory as it goes. It’s craftsman-made modern music, with the usual pristine production from Wayne Connolly – their choice of example credits for him are Boy & Bear and Paper Kites, but more mature viewers will know there’s an endless list of fine Australian names he’s helped form and focus. But that will give you an idea of how good this could be. 

A lot of serrated-edged guitar bands you may like could well reference Wire as one of their inspirations. Forty (!) years on from their inception, they’re still making new music, and certain not on the nostalgia circuit with similarly-vintaged Buzzcocks or Blondie. Short Elevated Period (Pink Flag comes at you relentlessly and why they’re probably better pigeonholed with the post-punk era rather than those of the safety-pin days. The musicianship is more than the basic three-chords-and-yell: the guitars more taut, barbed, and, er, you know, ‘wire-y’.