New music to listen to this week: Beau

Now Hear This

New York duo Beau (Press image)

Storm Jake has me pining for summer this week, so I've been enjoying the Laura Marling/Mac DeMarco vibes heard from Brooklyn based duo Beau.

They've played packed-out shows across the US along with London and Paris, not to mention an impressive performance at the launch for Patti Smith's play Cowboy Mouth at the Chelsea Hotel.

Recording their album That Thing Reality with Al 'alalal' O'Connell (Rufus Wainwright, Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars) earlier this year in London, the band also dropped the video for their track "Animal Kingdom" in February, which you can watch below.

Listen if you like: Laura Marling, Mac DeMarco, Sheryl Crow, Lana Del Ray

Q&A with Beau

What have you been listening to recently?

Recently we have been listening to Connan Mockasin's album Forever Dolphin Love. We love ‘It's Choade My Dear’ off the record in particular and the music video for that track is also awesome!

We've also really into Kurt Vile's newest album B’lieve I’m Goin Down… Our favourite song off that album is "Wheelhouse", mostly because it's so beautifully subdued and melancholic. Last but not least, The Talking Heads are a huge inspiration to us: whenever we hear one of their songs play on the radio or play at a club, we can't help but dance. Speaking In Tongues, in our opinion, is one of the best albums ever created and "This Must Be The Place" is definitely our favourite song of all time. Jonathan Richman is also an incredible inspiration, his song "Hospital" gets us every time. He is so advanced lyrically and melodically but also so free and honest in his expression.

What are you most looking forward to in 2016?

We are most looking forward to our debut album That Thing, Reality coming out 11 March through Kitsuné. We go on tour to the East Coast of the USA (New York, Philly and DC) with Miike Snow and then go down to Austin for our first shows at SXSW. We’re doing a tour in Europe, playing a show at The Servant Jazz Quarters London (30 March), then Paris, Bologna, Copenhagen and Rotterdam. We can't wait to be on the road and share our music but most importantly we look forward to spreading the energy of the album with people and expose the music to new fans. Al O'Connell who produced this album is our good friend, it was a joint effort and we were lucky enough to work with people who were close to us and believed in our music from the beginning. The album took over a span of 5 years to write and it's a mix of hyper personal songs (where you might as well be reading our diary) and more upbeat love songs. We recorded most of the album in London in exactly 40 days, recording only to tape, making sure everything was analogue. We are beyond excited to share it with everyone. It's going to be interesting to see what else 2016 will bring.

What was the first gig you ever did, and what’s been the best so far?

The first official gig we ever played was at The Standard, East Village in New York City during CMJ Festival about a year ago. It was wonderful, the place was packed and there's an amazing panoramic view of Lower Manhattan and Uptown. The best show so far is hard to say as there have been many across the spectrum of shows, but we recently played at Baby's All Right in Brooklyn which was phenomenal. The audience seemed really connected and it felt like something cosmic was happening.

That Thing, Reality is out on 11 March via Kitsuné