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Live Review: FEATURE ARTIST: Breton

3 April 2012 | 2:00 pm | Tom Hutchins

Breton are a mysterious four-piece hailing from London, whose combination of audio and video are intriguing and beautiful.

You know those bands you stumble upon while trolling the net at 1am? You have no idea how you found them, but you immediately fall in love, and, in a mid-morning rage, scout out every article, thread of information, and song that has ever come into existence? Well, for us, this is BRETON, a four-piece hailing from London who have captured our minds with their unique sound and their hypnotic visual and aural projects.

What makes them irresistible to the ever-involved music lover is their dark and mysterious career. Shrouded in secrecy, the band operates out of their South East London 'base', known as BretonLABS. You may have heard of that name before, we mean, they've only worked for the likes of Local Natives, The Temper Trap, Chapel Club, and Maps & Atlases, to name a few.

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When they do venture out into the world of live music (which was quite rare before last year), they hit the stage covered in black hoodies, only lit by the glow of their DIY visuals - which are cut and edited live by a touring member as the band perform. And who can resist a little mystery in a live show?

These multi-instrumentalists come together on stage like a family - working together to combine various guitars, bass, synth glitches, drums, samples, and unusual vocals to create an intriguing sound that would fall somewhere between post-dubstep oriented art rock and experimental noise-pop. Yes, that is the shortest way we could describe it. Think Tom Vek meets Foals meets HEALTH meets Mount Kimbie - it's a pretty wild concept.

Although the band has been booting around Europe for some time now, leaving behind a trail of EPs, B-Sides, and remixes, it's only now, in April 2012 that their debut full length is available for your listening pleasure. Recorded in Sundlaugin, the remote Icelandic studio home of Sígur Rós, Other People's Problems is an 11-part work of art with each piece of the album possessing its own life before coming together as one hell of mind-blowing listen. It's not often you can say that an album has no one song like another - but BRETON are the exception to the rule - and to us, that's something special.

For proof, look no further than the albums' lead single, 'Edward The Confessor'. It combines the band's natural ability to create beautiful visuals with their intimidatingly blissful sound.

And just so you don't have to spend your precious early morning hours digging through their discography (although, if you do - you'll be rewarded greatly), here are a couple of our favourite EP tracks and B-Sides.

'Ordnance Survey'

'Kensington System'

Words by Thomas Hutchins.