London-based Polaroid 85 combine haunting vocals, deep bass, intricate orchestral layers and glitchy samples to create downtempo, cinematic music. Their soulful, piano-led compositions are infused with elements of jazz, drum
Sara Groves (born in 1972) is an American singer/songwriter from Burnsville, Minnesota, near the Twin Cities and has some family in Vineland, NJ. Sara received her Bachelor of Science degree in History and English in 1994 from Evangel University, a private Christian university in Springfield, Missouri. Sara spent four years teaching high school in Rosemount, Minnesota before recording her first album, Past the Wishing, in 1998.
Michelle McManus (born on 8 May 1980, in Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish singer who found fame after winning the second season of Pop Idol in the United Kingdom. Michelle has subsequently had brief success as a recording artist. Since then, she has gone on to host a successful Scottish television programme called The Hour and has presented a series of Big Band specials on BBC 2. She also sang for the Pope in September 2010 alongside Susan Boyle.
Band founders Patricia Day and Kim Nekroman first met when Day's now-defunct band, the punk rock group Peanut Pump Gun, opened for Nekroman's psychobilly band, Nekromantix, at a festival in Cologne, Germany in 1996. Despite both belonging to the subculture scene of Copenhagen, Denmark, the two had never met before, but they became friends over their mutual interest in alternative music. The two would eventually marry.
"Haunting and intoxicating, windswept folk - stark but with an enveloping depth. Shimmering, elemental dreamlike songs", says the reviewer at Cafe Oto where she is due to play 27sep08 - she has an Irish Celtic lilt too and now lives in Brighton.
Over the last two years Katie Noonan and her new band
Helen Love are an indie band from wales whose music is a combination of punk rock and disco dance music. They were formed by the eponymous Helen Love who claims only to listen to the music of the Ramones, from which she draws inspiration for the band's music. Their music has been covered by the likes of Ash and Tullycraft. Current members are Helen, Sheena and Beth. Past members: Gary Strickland (guitar, 1997).
Bad Luck is a fictional band from the anime Gravitation, by Maki Murakami. Vocals for the band in the anime are done by Kotani Kinya, except for the song "Bird", which is done by Tomokazu Seki. Line-up (names written English style, family name last:
Shuuichi Shindou = vocals
Hiroshi Nakano = electric guitar
Suguru Fujisaki = synthesizer, keyboards
Early years: Yang began playing the guitar at the age of seven, and began formal tuition when she was ten, studying under the famous guitarist Chen Zhi, later Chairman of the China Classical Guitar Society. Her public debut was at the First China International Guitar Festival where she met immediate acclaim. At the same time, she was presented with her first foreign guitar (a "Pepe" children's guitar from Aria), by the celebrated Japanese guitar maker Masaru Kohno. She went on to win second prize at the Beijing Senior Guitar competition being the only child competitor, aged eleven.
The Flying Pickets is a British a cappella vocal group, that had a surprise number one hit in 1983 in the UK singles chart, with their cover of Yazoo's track Only You. The name 'Flying Pickets' refers to mobile strikers who travel in order to join a picket. The group of six was founded by Brian Hibbard in 1982 by a group of actors , the "7:84 Theatre group", a fringe theatre group who had sung a capella in their production of One Big Blow, based on the 1984 UK miners' strike.