cyberinsekt

Say hello to your new favourite band.

What a strange pair Mitch Greer and Rachel Smith make. I'd like to make a request here, if I might. Would it be possible, if just once I was able to read a review of the band that didn't describe them as psychedelic? Just once would be enough. I don't know who started it, but it isn't big, it isn't clever, and more to the point it isn't bloody accurate. It ends here.

The Lickets never sound as if they're part of the world of popular music. The structures are all wrong, with tracks built from extensively repeated phrases. There's no pop delight or rock catharsis, and seldom any sounds or riffs that could be placed in any popular subgenre. This isn't music that sounds like it was made by only two people. The sound is Stereolab-rich, but without the oppressive density that sometimes accompanies them. The closest analogue I can think of would be a band like Dead Can Dance; what they did for mediaevalism, the Lickets do for, well, the Lickets. It's an original, almost entirely fresh sound, and I love it.

Here's Honey to Ashes from their excellent 2007 album, Journey to Caldecott. It's an extended, dream-like piece. A short, slowly mutating guitar figure provides a bass for a free ranging flute to find strange harmonic places. En route, they're met by a swirling ensemble of sounds. This really is a fantastic album which I can't recommend to you enough. It's available as a pay-what-you-choose download from http://www.internationalcorporation.net/dm so you've really got no excuse for not grabbing a copy.

The Lickets - Honey to Ashes