Breaking Artist: These New Puritans

Who: These New Puritans, a quartet of art brats from Southend-on-Sea, England, that tore up the stage at SXSW, are currently making ears bleed and feet move throughout clubs in Europe and look forward to barnstorming America during their first U.S. tour in July.

Sounds Like: On their debut album Beat Pyramid, TNP smash the post-punk of Gang of Four into the dancefloor-ready anthems trademarked by their nu-raving peers Klaxons and Crystal Castles." People usually say we sit outside of any particular trend," singer/guitarist/computerist Jack Barnett tells Rock Daily.

Vital Stats:

• Joining Barnett in the band is bassist Thomas Hein, synth player Sophie Sleigh-Johnson and Jack's brother George on drums and other samples. "The band really formed a couple years ago, but you could say we formed since our birth," says Jack Barnett. "Because me and my twin brother have been making music together since we were children."

• The band's strangest live experience happened at a hometown show when the caterer brought a little too much of a certain item. "We once had cheese thrown at us. Expensive cheese as well, which I suppose is a measure of how much they hated us," Barnett says. "Gorgonzola flying at us."

• Before settling on the name These New Puritans, one of the monikers considered was the Ghost-deini, a reference to Ghostface Killah. The Wu-Tang Clan, RZA in particular, as a major influence, "That music is incredibly dense and still accessible." Barnett also cites Aphex Twin and the cartoon The Smurfs (we made him say it twice to confirm he wasn't saying "The Smiths") as major inspirations.

Hear It Now: These New Puritans' debut Beat Pyramid is available now. Click above to check out the video for the album's propulsive first single, "Elvis."

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Song Stories

“Too Close”

Next | 1998

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'" 

More Song Stories entries »

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