Le Thug - Place Is - 12

Labels: Song, By Toad Records
Review by: MH

I meant to write about this one a while back then I kind of forgot about it and then I forgot what the name of the band was – all I knew was that it was somewhere amongst a ridiculous amount of songs on my ipod. It got forgotten about for a while and then I noticed the band name on Twitter as they came up as a song having been played on BBC6 and I instantly remembered. For some reason I’m following the tweets of all the songs the station plays. I don’t get to listen to it very often in Australia but the track by track tweets are still of vague interest to me. Sometimes.

Le Thug – with a name like that you might think these Glaswegians would be really angry but they’re anything but that. This is a 6-song EP that showcases their fondness of shoegaze and dream pop. Clio’s vocals are quite lovely and drift along over the tracks. There’s a kind of electronic-y sound to the drums and for that reason they remind me a little of Curve but with a poppier, dreamier side. The thought of Curve always leads me to wonder why that mix of rap and shoegaze never took off. That track “Ten Little Girls” blew me away as a teenager in 1991. What was the rapper’s name again? I’ve just looked it up – JC 001! He even howled like a wolf after his little rap bit. I don’t recall anyone else trying anything similar after that – maybe I just didn’t notice. Le Thug don’t try it either. It’s quite nice all round this EP – they might need a bit more variation to keep me interested for a whole album but this is decent. On another note, the cover photo is absolutely marvellous.

Le Thug – Basketball Land from Song, by Toad on Vimeo.