Get Back Guinozzi! release debut single ‘Low Files Tropical’
July 28, 2009, 09:40 AM Views: 276
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 The debut release from FatCat’s latest signing, ‘Low Files Tropical’ is a great introduction to Get Back Guinozzi! - a double-A-sided single offering up two summery shots of vibrantly colourful and quirky, outsider pop.
The lead track neatly sets out their stall, with singer Eglantine Gouzy’s doubled-up vocal, jangling guitars and a scuzzy pitch-shifting keyboard buzz rippling around a thick, dubbed-up yearsdrumbeat, and a brief, coo-ing vocal bridge nodding towards Animal Collective. Eglantine describes the track as “it's the story of a monk I met when I was travelling in India 10 years ago. He was ‘half monk, half junky’, looked like David Bowie in the video ‘China Girl’ and was on his way to a monastery. When we parted at Bombay railway station, we decided to send tourist postcards of sunsets and sunrises to each other, a sort of game. When I finally came back to France I received 100 sunset postcards from him, with beautiful, strange high poetry on the back.“ ‘Low Files Tropical’ is ably backed with a brilliantly punchy, bubbly version of the classic, much-covered ‘Police & Thieves’ which - complete with kazoo solo - perhaps owes more to Junior Murvin’s original than The Clash’s best known version, and became a huge blog hit in June - eventually finding it's way on to 6Music.
Now a 5-piece band based between London and the South of France, Get Back Guinozzi! comprises a unique blossoming of hybrid sources – infectiously poppy, quirky and breezy, with a strong French slant and a wide range of influences taking in the likes of Talking Heads, The Feelies, The Smiths, early B-52's, King Sunny Adé, Lee Perry, Rip Rig & Panic, Ariel Pink, The Slits, The Cure, Animal Collective, Jonathan Richman, and Serge Gainsbourg. Infused with the exoticism of reggae, dub, African music, Tropicalia, and Cambodian music from the '60s, the breadth of sources it draws on, allied to its singer’s skewed narratives and heavily-inflected English, give the project a distinctive individuality.
Driven by French friends, guitarist Fred Landini and singer Eglantine Gouzy (with whom FatCat have been talking for some time, having posted three of her solo tracks on our online demo archive back in 2004), the band began with Fred composing fifteen brief tracks for a contemporary dance company, using a minimal set up of a guitar, rhythm box, and a single keyboard sound. Having collaborated together on some previous material, Fred sent London-based Eglantine some of this instrumental material to work on, and the pair were so excited by the results that they decided to form a band. More tracks were sent across the internet, with Eglantine adding vocals, keyboards, percussion and odd electronics, until a full album worth of material emerged. A five-piece band was formed with the addition of Regis Laugier (bass), Luc Benito (drums) and Fabrice Giuisiano (guitar, keyboard), and GBG played their debut shows in September 2008.
Singing “English in a baboon style” (with lyrical meaning often partially obsured), Fred describes Eglantine's lyrics as being replete with fantasy and a kind of dark humor. "It's Eglantine's view of the world. It's an attempt at Zouk or tropical music with these lyrics that are a little bit spooky." Influenced by singers like Ari Up (The Slits), Pygmies, Laurie Anderson, Serge Gainsbourg, Allison Staton (Young Marble Giants) and Donna Summer, Eglantine likes "to imagine my own little movies where I can be different characters. I can make doubles of myself, I can transform myself - a real schizophrenic, sometimes within the same track.".
Following some time out after the birth this Spring of Eglantine's first child, Get Back Guinozzi! are set to undertake their first proper bout of live touring this Autumn. The band's debut album (‘Carpet Madness’) will be released on October 19th.
Get Back Guinozzi!
‘Low Files Tropical’ b/w ‘Police & Thieves’
Formats: 7” / digital
Release Date: 14th September, 2009 Track listing:
A1. Low Files Tropical AA1. Police and Thieves
GET BACK GUINOZZI ! on MySpace Music
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