Something is stirring in the British indie underground.
A new generation of bands is rediscovering the joys of jangling guitars, glorious melodies and the simple pleasure of making a racket with your friends. Call it C26 if you like. A loose collection of young bands reclaiming the spirit of C86, but with their eyes firmly fixed on the future.
From Bramwell and pushbike to Autocamper and Syrena, the guitars are chiming again. And nobody seems particularly interested in waiting for permission.
The Paris Match are another outfit caught up in this glorious resurgence, although they’re approaching things from a slightly different direction.
Hailing from London but seemingly splitting their time between the England Capital and Glasgow, to the extent that they’ve become regular fixtures around that city’s burgeoning Cabbage scene, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Fatale, Ferguson Hi-Fi and Supersun. They’ve also stolen something of a head start, coming off a successful stint supporting Primal Scream on their recent tour.
And scenes matter.
Not because everybody needs to sound alike. Quite the opposite. What matters is a shared outlook. A desire to create something, support one another and celebrate the possibilities of making music together.
The Paris Match tread a slightly different path from their jangling contemporaries.
Their melodies are more relaxed, their influences drawn from a sprawling collection of twentieth-century musical adventures. And they even have a regular saxophone player.
We need more of that.
The most obvious reference point is perhaps Primal Scream themselves, who have spent decades indulging their musical magpie instincts, collecting fragments of soul, psychedelia, blues, rock ’n’ roll and dance music and fashioning them into something entirely their own.
The Paris Match haven’t made their own Screamadelica yet.
But give them time.
Tune Into Me! is a soulful, blues-soaked affair, all rolling backbeats, undulating vocals and swelling saxophone lines. Mournful piano chords drift beneath the melody while the rasping, whisky-soaked voice stumbles and sways, always finding its way back to something sweet and soulful.
It’s the sound of summer afternoons spent lying on the grass in the park.
Never mind that we’re currently staring down the barrel of another rain-soaked autumn.
For three and a half minutes, we can build our own world.
A world where the sun always shines, the days stretch endlessly into the evening, the beer is cheap and the Beatles are permanently number one.
But this isn’t retro for the sake of it.
The musical references are there if you care to go looking. I’ll throw Exile on Main St.-era Rolling Stones and a little XTC into the mix, although there are probably another dozen influences lurking beneath the surface.
The point isn’t where these sounds came from.
It’s what The Paris Match choose to do with them.
They’re heading towards the future with the reassuring comfort of the occasionally familiar, borrowing from the past without feeling particularly obliged to live there.
And perhaps that’s the most exciting thing about this new generation of bands. They’re not trying to recreate 1986, or 1991, or any other supposedly golden year of British guitar music.
They’re making something for right now.
From London to Glasgow and everywhere in between, the guitars are ringing out again.
The Cabbage is there if you want it.
Tune Into Me! is out now on all your favourite streaming services. The Paris Match are seemingly constantly touring Europe while playing regularly in Glasgow and Paris (obviously.) The Cabbage is a Glasgow arts collective that might yet take over the world.
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