THE JOY FORMIDABLE: NEW SINGLE

(Photo by Sarah Jeynes)

My relationship with London-via-Wales band The Joy Formidable began sometime in early 2008 while I was living in Boston. I was running a music blog and getting solicited by every clown band under the sun. Most weren’t very good and tried way too hard to sell me, but TJF had just posted the tune “Austere” on their MySpace page (hey, remember that site?) and sent me short, polite message and I gave them a shot. They reminded me of ’90s Tanya Donelly-led project Belly, but with the fuzz turned way, way up – very impressive stuff.

As subsequent singles “Cradle” and “Whirring” were released, followed by the mini-album A Balloon Called Moaning, my fandom intensified even further. These guys were really that good. In May of 2009 I finally got to see the band play in England, at a small venue in Brighton as part of the always essential Great Escape conference.

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