Noah & The Whale - '5 Years Time'
When I was a young lad, and all of this was just trees and fields, my friends and I used to go and see a band called Jonah and the Wail. They were this kind of Misfits-y panto goth rock troupe, and their singer - who was presumably called Jonah - used to caper around the stage dressed in stripy prison pyjamas and looking like the reanimated Frankenstein's monster after a whacking great dose of super-voltage and an intravenous litre of Red Bull. He also had three polka-dotted backing singers, and a guitarist with an amazing quiff.
They used to do a cover of Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York', and changed the words to make them more depraved (it began, if memory serves, "start spreading your"...erm, actually, let's not go there), and then abandoned bits of the song to do a ramalama punk chorus which was not in the original version at all.
Jonah's little brother Noah does not do any of these things, it's fair to say...
Noah is more of a ukulele and beards kind of man. He sings in a flat, raspy, nasal voice with ripe vowels, and his music is incredibly un-theatrical. In fact, his only concession to making up stuff like entertainers do is that his name is actually not Noah (it's really Charlie), and he doesn't seem to own a whale. Oh and that he isn't a he, he's a we. Got it? Cool.
And I'll tell you something else. There is clearly no song which Laura Marling's voice can't transform into something startling. This begins as a pretty, tinkly, wafty thing before Laura arrives, all ukulele*, whistles and glockenspiel, like those Vashti Bunyan songs they use in TV ads. But once she sings THAT harmony in the chorus, it transforms - Hulk-style - into a rippling, handclapping, supercute pop moment, with Laura as the cuckoo in the clock, popping out every chorus to sing "fun fun fuuUUuuunnn" or "love love looOOoove". Srsly, you could set your watch by her.
It's the same thing she did in 'Young Love' by the Mystery Jets, or even 'Suspicious Eyes' by the Rakes. These songs seem to exist in two states, Before Laura and After Laura. Before, the song is resistant to taking off, it's a baby bird, nervous of leaving the nest, afterwards, you can't pry it off the ceiling with a hot spatula.
That's not to play down young Noah's efforts, either. She used to be a full member of the band, after all, and anyway, it's still a really cute song.
At least he doesn't have to dress like he's in the Mighty Boosh and defile his dad's record collection just to get our attention.
His brother Moses And The Whole, on the other hand, is an entirely different story...
Download: Out now
CD Released: July 28th
(Fraser McAlpine)
* The great (filthy pun? What filthy pun?) even explains how to play the song. There's a tricky chord, apparently, but you can play it the easy way if you like. Ain't life grand?
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