This LA duo's murky and mystical music conjures the 80s Liverpool of Echo and the Bunnymen
Hometown: Los Angeles.
The lineup: Leopold Ross and Ioanna Gika.
The background: There we were, thinking we were lavishing too much praise on too many new bands, of being insufficiently critical and coolly detached, when we got collared last night by a throng ? it might have been a horde, but it was late and it was dark ? who told us in no uncertain terms that we need to make this column less negative. Well, maybe it's the way we tell 'em, but we assumed if anything we'd been too fawning, in the last week or so, towards Chad Valley, Niki and the Dove, Girl Unit, Zoo Kid, Patrick Kelleher, Selebrities, Treefight for Sunlight, Fantastic Mr Fox and Wretch 32. Apparently not ? we've been systematic in stemming the emergence of new talent and are generally guilty of making life more difficult for more young people than anyone this side of Nick Clegg. That distant rumble we can hear is the sound of angry musicians gathering outside the building threatening to do unpleasant things to the New band of the day writer.
Or it could just be Io Echo on the stereo. They've got a rumbling, booming sound, see. In fact, it's almost onomatopoeic, reverberating with memories of goth bands past and hints of goth acts present. Their name may bring to your mind, in a Proustian rush, Echo and the Bunnymen, and that would be appropriate because Io Echo, like the Bunnymen before them, manage to write catchy pop songs and imbue them with a sense of darkness, of the murky and mystical, and a rhythmical, almost tribal, intensity. And you can quote us on that. There is also lots of echo ? and delay and reverb ? in their music. But as with Niki and the Dove, the female vocals add melody just when the noise becomes too strident.
They're a good balance, are the Io Echo pair. Leopold Ross is all face and no fringe; Ioanna Gika is all fringe and no face. His guitar slashes and scythes; her vocals, while strong, are ethereal with a side order of tremulous warble, the quiver connoting a darkly erotic charge. They're based in Los Angeles (she's from LA; he's from London), but together they make a sound that couldn't be more 80s Liverpool if it tried: think not just McCulloch and Co but also the Mission. They have two modes: fast, with a 4/4 urgency that makes them sound like goth given a house makeover (paging Sarah Beeny); and slow, where the drums beat majestically and you can almost taste the dry ice. They've got one called Shanghai Girls that not surprisingly isn't a million miles from Siouxsie's Hong Kong Garden, and another called Outsiders. Well, of course they have (paging the legions of the dispossessed). They've already toured the States with Florence and the Machine, La Roux and the Big Pink (for whom Ross moonlights on bass) and they opened for Nine Inch Nails' last-ever show. We also hear that their "thrilling stage antics" involve "climbing the venue trellises and throwing up onstage", which we're less enamoured of, and hopefully you won't mind us saying so.
The buzz: "Gorgeous dreamy rock ... where shoegazing meets grunge meets goth" ? 17seconds.co.uk.
The truth: Apart from the vomiting bit, it's a thumbs-up from your usually-quite-negative, downbeat New Band of the Day man.
Most likely to: Exude tremulous sexuality.
Least likely to: Advertise trellises.
What to buy: While You Are Sleeping is released in December by IAMSOUND.
File next to: Zola Jesus, Niki and the Dove, Siouxsie, the Mission.
Links: myspace.com/ioecho
Monday's new band: Minks.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/26/new-band-io-echo
Jessica Cauffiel Emmanuelle Vaugier Sarah Silverman Larissa Meek Gina Carano
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