Glass Animals is an english quirk-pop quartet formed by Dave Bayley, Drew MacFarlane, Edmund Irwin-Singer e Joe Seaward.
Oxford has been their creative background and it’s here they debuted in 2012 with the EP Leaflings, released on independent label Kaya Kaya Records, which has been influenced by the months spent in bass-oriented clubs of South London and by the woody past of the leader Dave Bayley, showing an impressive crossroad between art-pop harmonies, r&b/soul vocalisms and electronic bases led by wobble basses.
In 2013 they started to gain visibility thanks to the omonimous EP and to singles like Black Mambo and Psylla, while in 2014 Gooey give the right mediatic exposure to the band before the publication of the debut album “Zaba”. On 6 June 2014 Wolf Tone/Caroline International, the record label of British producer Paul Epworth, releases the album Zaba.
Zaba can be defined as a psychedelic indie pop record, with jungle percussions and an exotic sound – the lead singer David Bayley is the principal promoter of this quality of sound, inspired by the children’s book “The Zabajaba Jungle” written by William Steig (creator of Shrek).
With Zaba the band had the chance to tune his own direction detaching more from bulky models as Alt-J and Wild Beasts, through some limpid and appropriate stylistic choices. In few words a compact and elegant work, eccentric at the right point.
“Glass Animals create a formula that leaves you curled in a corner marvelling at their brilliance” – Clash Music.
There is a rare complexity of rythm and sound and not all the qualities can be understood at the first listening but, at every additional passage, you can feel more and more plunged in the very evocative and captivating atmospheres of each track. In this album, Zaba, some of the songs (all written, composed, and produced by Dave Bayley ) are voted to an emotional serenity and give a sense of tranquillity and positive vibes (like Black Mambo and Pools), whereas others are more velvety and obscures (Toes and Hazey). The keyword of their entire work are in any case exotism and rhytm (a starting point similar to their compratriots Troumaca).
Bayley, the leader of the band, says about Paul Epworth, their producer: “He’s a really great producer, he knows how to make everyone feel really relaxed and push you out of your comfort zone so you’re not just regurgitating ideas but coming up with new ones and trying things out – even if they don’t work.”
In their music is incredible the ability of creating true vocals mantras, that grow syllable after syllable, committed to perfects sound details (environmental rustle, animal voices, percussions and delicate electronic intrusions) that show an excellent and certainly mature idea of the sound for a debut.
Here you can find all the their live dates.
Until the 18 July they will be touring in Europe, then from 23 July you can find them in the United States.
From the end of August until mid September they’ll come back thorugh Europe and Russia, then againg in the US.
