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Laroca - Valley Of The Bears
NEW ALBUM OUT NOW!
"Their instrumentals establish a unique identity, whether updating Issac Hayes oceanic orchestral soul, or by subtly becoming as dry - and French - as Air"
Uncut Magazine
"Hints of Africa, sweeping electro and heroic brass"
Q Magazine
"A terrific achievement – one that’s rich in ambition, high on quality and really deserving of a huge fanbase"
Indie London
"I am blown away and can't wait to play them on the show in the next few weeks"
Claire Anderson, The Late Lounge, Jazz FM
"Another stunning album" The Beat Surrender
"It's ethereal, cinematic; Continental and further; funk-filled and so much more. There's so much happening you could talk about it- and listen to it- all day. Laroca have put their signature stamp on every song making each song intrinsically linked, yet sounding so dissimilar to each other. The musicianship is as impressive as the compositions themselves, and the combinations they bring together can often bewitch" The 405
"Laroca are an English band with a very European sound. We were first alerted to them through the excellent 'Elevator Tester' EP - a beguiling electronica track..The rest of the album includes many different styles of instrumental music ..but it does all hang together awfully well (mainly through the trumpet of Steve Preston). Worth also getting the remixes of Elevator Tester from the EP which are almost new songs altogether. "
Meme Magazine
Nigel Williamson on Laroca:
It might be an exaggeration to say that Laroca make music like nothing
you've ever heard before - but it's pleasingly/confoundingly/ thrillingly
impossible to describe their heady, uplifting mix of cinematic grooves,
global beats, chilled moods and exotic funk.
Turntable culture and digital wizardy mix promiscuously with real
instruments played live in the studio. Lush electronica and chopped-up 21st century beats fuse effortlessly with exotic gypsy flavours, tango rhythms and timeless Sufi soul. Chilled flutes and muted trumpets flirt wantonly with funky, choppy guitar riffs and brain-busting bass lines. It's music that is one minute reflective and profound - and as playful as a new-born kitten the next.
On Valley of The Bears, Laroca didn't set out to defy the straightjacket of convention, simplistic categorisation and close confinement. It just turned out that way. Influences there are a-plenty, from Massive Attack to Gotan Project with a thousand musical stopovers in between. And yet Laroca still manage to sound like none of them.
From the opening track ''Brassic'' with its wild, lurching gypsy waltz-to-the-end-of time vibe via the mutant Afro-funk of ''Unit 125'' and the fractured Gallic noir of ''Carpe Diem'' to the jazzy shuffle and muted trumpet of the penultimate track ''Pluck'', it's an album that conjures such vivid images that you're left thinking 'someone really ought to make a film to go with this'. Hollywood wouldn't know where to begin. But a Kusturica or Almodovar, perhaps.
''Our one ambition was to make the kind of record that we ourselves would want to hear,'' Rob concludes. There's a growing crowd that already agrees.
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