Though they hail from the birthplace of The Beatles, you won't find Liverpudlian quintet Outfit mimicking much of their musical legacy, well... except for maybe channelling the surreal side of pop. Having met through a Merseyside mansion that housed a collective of outsider artists, the five members of Outfit have since debunked for the band buzz utopia of London, but the solidarity of their creative commune still lingers in their music.
Their moniker being only a few letters short of being 'outcast,' their tunes seem directed towards characters with the same disposition. There's a creepy, voyeuristic edge to their music that they aren't afraid of shying away from. It's like seeing the private parts of people's lives in sonic detail, such as the loneliness implied in the nervy guitars of Firemen Don't Fly; or the explicitly strange narrative of Every Night I Dress Up As You, it's titular lyric adding "I do my hair/I walk around the city at pace and hope we come face to face."
The music that accompanies these sordid tales is equally beguiling, in short, they sound like a group that couldn't decide if they wanted to be a hypnotic rock band, or an austere electronic *ahem* outfit - so instead occupied the audio venn diagram where the two overlap. Their handful of tunes mostly closely recall the sophisticated R&B-via-indie grooves of fellow nationals Wild Beasts, but there's also the kaleidoscopic invention of The Horrors and the stuttered rhythms of Talking Heads' more paranoid moments in their style.
Though only just piecing together their debut album, they've already been given the UK press blessing as part of NME's Top 50 Best New Bands off the back of their atmospheric live show and a few singles. Their latest, Dashing In Passing, is the first taste of a forthcoming debut EP entitled Another Night's Dreams Reach Earth Again due in April. Even off the back of such a meagre catalogue, it's clear Outfit's enigmatic take on indie-pop ticks the boxes for the blogosphere intellegencia enough to soon championing them.
Oh, and definitely check out their visually mesmerising website while you're at it.
Outfit // Dashing In Passing by TheSoundsOfSweetNothing
Outfit // Two Islands by Double Denim Records
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