Stealing Sheep

Mar 9 2010

Stealing Sheep 460

Stealing Sheep from Wonderland

Stealing Sheep have just completed their new EP ‘What if the lights went out’ and are now awaiting the ‘release party after-party tea party’ at the end of May. This is their second release this year as the band busy their way between UK tour dates, live radio sessions and recording. If you haven’t yet discovered them, there is a wonderful world to enter...

Their first EP is ‘With a wand she is a poet’, a somewhat timid hint at the bands full potential. It is a collection of their first exploratory songs in a neat little digital download. It is carefree and casual with a low-fi atmosphere and ditty-like lullabies. A fond reminder of the summer festivals played in 2009. Sure to be a lost gem amongst the high and mighty label driven bands of that year.

The underground success of their first release has encouraged the girls to go back into the studio. If ‘With a wand’ is a strawberry - lush, cheery and sweet, then ‘What if the lights went out’ is more of an avocado, soft, lovely but unfamiliar. Whilst it retains the same beauty and innocence of the first EP, a new distinctive, refined sound has developed, as wisdom and love collide in this music.

The new EP ‘What if the lights went out’…

It is a dynamic EP in terms of contrasting sounds and atmospheres. There are a thousand textures to the EP that flood their polite songs with welcome warmth and intrigue. The first track of the album has the quirky title ‘Shoot the ducks to win’ and metaphorically compares the antique funfair game, with a love affair that results in a winner and a loser.

The scene is set when accordion and harps are audibly thrown around a pipe organ (one they had found in an antique shop on Lark Lane in Liverpool and had since collected dust in the attic due to it’s pitchy ‘qualities’).

A bunch of vintage keyboards keep a saddening humor alive throughout the track as they pitch bend around the chords met by guitars, a cello, a music box and other oddments that create sound.

The three girls child-like unison vocals are in some way storytelling, whilst occasionally spiraling off into harmonies and counter melodies. A wonderland of strings and tickling glockenspiel are also friends throughout, helping define the consistent yet varied sound of the EP.

The sound is satisfying and whispers production styles of the likes of Feist, Cocorosie and Hanne Hukkelburg, whilst remaining truthful to the identity of Stealing Sheep. The girls have worked closely with their creative producer and friend Nicolas Smith. His complimentary musicality shines through the tracks as he also makes it his own in many ways. Through the EP he becomes part of Stealing Sheep and is as necessary as the girls when creating the magic of the songs.

The inner workings of Stealing Sheep have changed a lot since the band’s ‘carefree-as the-wind’ days and their new EP is revealing the real depth and magic of the group. If you have already been charmed, expect to fall down, down, down, head over heels into controlled chaos, until everything is as it shouldn’t be, and yet, exactly how it should.

Written by Ben Morgan – The Art Pocket

Find out more: www.myspace.com/stealingsheep