The Noise Who Runs - Beautiful Perhaps (TNWR Records)

There is something beguiling in the wonderful mix of guitar and electronica; analogue meets digital sounds at the core of this first song from The Noise Who Runs soon-to-drop long-player Preteretrospective. It’s a heady mix which joins the dots between goth and new wave, between post-punk and hip-hop and, more specifically, between scenes like 70’s Sheffield’s experimental scene and Manchester of the nineties when dance and rock music stopped being sworn enemies and positioned themselves as opposites that attract.

But the lyrics here set the tone for the album to follow. Ian Pickering, who makes up half of this project with Felipe Goes, used to be a journalist (though if you recognise the name, it is more likely that it is because he was a member of Sneaker Pimps), and so is someone who is used to dealing with facts rather than perceived truths. The lyrics address the modern problem of people inventing their preferred and more convenient truths rather than relying on realities and facts. Accepting the facts is not always easy, but the act of doing so is sometimes beautiful, perhaps.

It is worth noting that The Noise Who Runs is a direct, literal translation of O bruit qui cour, a French phrase meaning gossip. It was also the name of Pickering’s favourite restaurant, where the ideas for this project fell into place.

It is a song which is anthemic yet accessible, gothic, grand and graceful, delicately dance-driven and dark, coiled and ornate, slow and seductive, bruised, brooding yet in some respects beautiful…perhaps.

Order the single
Bandcamp
Spotify
These Will Be Your Gods EP
Bandcamp