I reckon pretty much everyone tries a diet at sometime in their life. Whether that’s because they want to get smaller, or more muscle-bound, or fit into a particular dress or something, we all try it. I had a friend, this huge Tuba player we called Tiny, who went on a diet. Cut out all the rubbish he usually ate and ate sensibly, vegetables and brown bread. The weight started to drop off him, but the next thing I knew, he was in hospital, suffering from dehydration and other less appetising constitutional complaints. After the visiting Doctor asked Tiny what else he usually ate, apart from the Curries, Kebabs and Burgers he had mentioned, he racked his brain and slowly shook his head, ‘Nothing’, he said. So Tiny became the first and only person I ever met that was prescribed Curries, Kebabs and Burgers by a hospital doctor – ‘You’re constitution can’t take such a sudden change’ the Doctor told him, ‘You’ll have to go about it much more slowly’. I’m not sure I’ve ever really heard of a totally successful diet.
London band Years & Years make this sort of (excuse the Spinal Tapism) Fire and Ice music. These Icy Cold Synths in polar opposite the Fire of the driving drums and guitar work, and warm beauty of singer Olly Alexander’s voice. Instead of resulting in the luke warm (watch the film….) instead Years & Years make engaging and sometimes enthralling music, that’s attracted the attention of people as diverse as Lauren Laverne and Judy Dench (yes, really).
Explaining the way they came to write the song, and other material they’ve been working on, it seems they relocated to a remote cabin on the secluded Sussex Seafront and wrote after dieting on 60s soul, analogue synths and Seinfeld.
Judging by Traps, seems there might be a completely successful diet after all.
http://www.soundcloud.com/yearsandyears
http://yearsandyears.co.uk
http://www.twitter.com/yearsandyears
