There's no right in the world. But there is one little injustice that we CAN put right, that apparently few people in the UK have heard of Alcoholic Faith Mission. I'm almost reluctant to share because they are so surprising. I somehow fear spoiling it all, this secret little pleasure I've been keeping to myself for a few months now. Their album, "421 Wythe Avenue", was one of my absolute highlight albums of 2009, one I just keep going back to and back to months later.

So why have I been keeping it to myself till now? I simply came to it late that's all, way after it's European release and thought I'd missed my window of opportunity to shout about "421" and this wonderful band. They were touring in Europe but nowhere near our UK shores and have graciously put up with me pestering them on MySpace to come over here. Hell, at one point I even offered to promote UK gigs for them, that's how much I believe in them. And now, "421 Wythe Avenue" is getting it's proper US release, and the band have got UK dates coming up. I've already got my ticket for March 30th at the Wilmington in London, bought and paid for I might add but they've promised me a few more UK dates. Thorben from the band tells me that he is hoping for Manchester and Brighton - they've obviously got taste in the right towns to visit - but we'll have to wait and see what transpires on that score.

From the way this album opens it feels like it is cleverly constructing itself, building itself out of reverb, rattle and buzz; clicks and whirrs; some bare piano being joined by strangely chanting enchanted voices. I've been trying to work out just why it opens my mind so much, and apart from some hippy psycho-drivel, I just have to accept that it does. It's clever stuff though, constructing, deconstructing, hiding itself, pretending at one moment to be folk music and the next the voice in the machine.

Most startling of all of this remarkable record is second track 'Gently'. That they get away with singing "just 'cause I'm a whore, you know, it doesn't mean I don't feel it when you fuck me gently", and that it is without irony and such a thing of beauty. Softly sung but not sentimentally and repeated in a small female voice with a back beat that sounds like fireworks in the amps. It's stunning in its audacity and attracted it's share of finger pointing comment when Alcoholic Faith Mission released the album in Europe a few months ago. But it's no mere prurient curio, this deserves to be regarded as art. Lovely.


The rest of the album never strays far from it's electro, buzzy, folky take on life. It's true that you need to be tuned in to this, that it demands attention, but easily given once this has you in its clutches

'Nut In Your Eye' is duet call and response, a simple tactic, matching male and female voice in an intertwining dance. As I freely admit and proclaim, the album stays in similar territory throughout, woozy and psychedelic. Some latter buzzed up relation of the paisley underground and filling a void left hollow since It's Jo And Danny gave up recording to concentrate on their festival. This one groove, this ambient feeling works so well because it just drags you in and holds you under and makes you submit.

A note on that 'small female voice.' The band started out as duo of Thorben and Sune for their first largely bedroom produced album but by the time they got to "421" they were a bigger outfit with the female vocals originally by Camilla Mejlvang. They had the traditional differences of opinion and enter stage left Kristine Permild, according to Thorben a match made in heaven. I 'll let you work out who is who, they are different and both charming. The rest of the band are Thorben Seierř, Sune Sřlund, Laurids Smedegaard and Gustav Rasmussen. The main male voice in the mix is Thorben and both pairings work well - 'Did You Eat' being perhaps the most effective and affecting duet.

By the time we get to 'Sweet Evelyn,' there's a summer time feel, guitars that should be strummed somewhere near sand, despite that frequently present background buzz. Actually as I'm writing this I'm listening (not for the first time) and I can finally make out the chorus, "Waiting at the bus stop, sipping lemonade". Segueing across to the jazz brass that hovers like static over the beginnings of the final track.


For some reason that remains curious to me, this Copenhagen band felt the need to de-camp to the States to record this. Yes, to 421 Wythe Avenue to be precise, that being an address in New York where they holed up with their self imposed rules for recording. In this, they remind me a touch of Dogme films, different rules but similar self imposed constraint.

1. Record only at night,
2. Record only when intoxicated but not fully drunk
3. The room only lit by candles and computer
4. Rehearsal permitted, but recorded once.

However strange, this discipline has forced out results. They have again become part time emigres to record their new album, currently being completed.

I've listened to this album dozen of times, and it's time you did too

Video for Nut In Your Eye - The Second Vision on Vimeo

Video for 'Dead Birds' (track not on this album)


(Don't worry the interview switches from German to English after about a nano-second)

UK gigs upcoming so far are both in London - March 27 (Barfly) and March 30 (Wilmington), but look out for updates

alcoholic faith mission on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads