IDEAS

C/o Losingtoday.com

Here’s a bit of gem that had us knocked off our listening perch and frankly left scrambling desperately for reference markers, ‘do or die’ is we’re assuming the debut release or at the very least the inaugural outing of Manchester’s Piran and beyond that the information trail runs cold. That said it should by rights be causing all amount of fuss among the undergrounds more clued up cognoscenti not withstanding the fact that it sounds remarkably unlike anything else currently patrolling planet pop. In its own way a kind of fading shy eyed call to arms on one hand and yet a strictly sparse and minimalist pop sweetie on the other. Currently unsigned though I shouldn’t wonder that there’ll be plenty of offers beating a hasty path to their door once this gets a little more exposure and if not there’ll be much incredulous nods of disapproval in our gaff I can tell you. One of those kind of tracks where your left wondering whether or not the melodic accompaniment was actually added as an afterthought such is its feint detailing and application. Strangely bracing and quietly euphoric in a kind of threadbare bitter sweet way, ’do or die’ – alas not the Human League cut of the same name from the every home owning ’Dare’ platter of yesteryear – is braided by a delightfully attractive perky motif that’s indelibly cast amid a strangely becoming proto funk groove that finds itself hollowed and dispatched with a decidedly austere electro post punk vibe which unless our ears do deceive had us pretty much recalling elements of the Passage albeit as though rounded, smoothed and shocked with a tugging pop drill by a gathering of White and Torch and Dalek I Love You sorts, certainly sounds as though its fallen from a C-81 era Peel play list, though on repeat listens we’re picking up vague nods to the early career work of the New Fast Automatic Daffodils though ultimately viewed from whatever angle you care to take you can help but feel that their nearest musical kin are A Certain Ratio which young folk is mighty fine by us. Certainly worth the keeping of the odd eye out for.