First in Gigseen's series of 'New Band' profiles (which should be out regularly every Thursday) is an up and coming bunch of chaps from Bradford: Wilful Missing.
Style? Genre? ... Hmm .. I always hate having to put my finger on definitions like that, but if someone held a gun to my head and demanded an answer: 'nu-folk'? - does that exist?. Of course anyone who has listened to more a couple of records in their lifetime will hear influences in anyone's music - this is after all the 21st century. Nothing wrong really with just saying that in the case of Wilful Missing that they write pretty damn decent songs that will more than likely make you smile. For example, the latest single Constitution Failed.
Composed of Sam Kipling, Sam Lawrence, Albert Freeman, Ruth Viqeuira and Rhys Kelly, the 5-piece have started to be picked up on muso radar - primarily from having a number of their tracks featured on BBC show Waterloo Road (also hailing from Bradford - nice local touch). I heard the song DIY this way, from another room of course, I'm not a habitual soap/drama person ... Then spent a while googling the chorus lyrics till I found out the whos and whats. Promptly bought all available recordings too of course.
So far, all Wilful Missing's material has been made available for download via Bandcamp as either 'pay as much as you like' or 'pay at least XXX'. A great scheme, and one that I wonder why more bands don't take advantage of. Aside from the single Constitution Failed there are also two EPs, DIY appearing on the latest offering Vast Atlantic.
Me personally, I can see the band doing rather well in the near future especially when considering the way other artists of a similar sound (Stornoway spring to mind) have taken off in the last twelve months or so ... Perhaps a campaign could be started to get W.M. onto a Jools Holland show. C'mon BBC - get those connections networking.
wilful missing links
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