Some weeks wading through your inbox for that video and song combination that inspires you, that touches you enough to make it our standout visual for that week, can be hard work. This week Australian band City Calm Down have caught me totally unaware, a new name to me they caused a stir with their first track ‘In This Modern Land’earlier this year. And with “Joan, I’m Disappearing” it’s not hard to see why exquisite instrumentation threaded with live sounding piano motifs and elegant percussion, drum fills and forgiving synth parts that are reminiscent of Talk Talk at their most commercial, the vocal is quite outstanding trembling with an existential lyrics (“I’ll sit here for days/in my airconditioned cage”) and an emotive swoop.
I may be getting a bit giddy here but it exists in the grand tradition of other Australian groups like the Triffids or Nick Cave, it comes complete with an accompanying cinematic video shot on 16mm on a desolate old farm in New South Wales. It’s so easy to over produce this early ’80s influenced post-punk and pomp rock sound, but there’s a deftness about this songwriting and a humanity rooting the vocals and lyrics here. Having heard a sample of their forthcoming debut album I’m really excited for what City Calm Down have in store, the ambition of early Simple Minds, with a mix of instrumentation brass and keyboards, welded to a grand poeticism that has utterly flawed me this evening. City Calm Down return to the UK this May on this evidence they will be well worth witnessing first hand.
