Chip in, if you can:
These New Puritans in concert from the 2011 SOS Festival in Murcia Spain – broadcast live on August 4, 2011 from Radio Nacional España’s Radio 3.
I haven’t really heard much from this band in recent years, but that doesn’t mean they’ve broken up or are even on hiatus. It just means I haven’t seen them on tour lately in the U.S.
In case you are unfamiliar:
These New Puritans are an English music group/band from the Southend-on-Sea, England. It consists mainly of Jack Barnett (songwriter, producer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist) and his twin brother George Barnett (drums, metallophone, loops). Thomas Hein (sampler, keyboards, percussion, bass) was an active member of TNP between 2006 and 2016; Sophie Sleigh-Johnson (keyboards, sampler) was an active member of TNP between 2006 and 2010. They have recorded four albums, Beat Pyramid, released in 2008, Hidden, released in 2010, and Field of Reeds, released in 2013, and Inside the Rose, released in 2019.
In a 2008 interview, Jack Barnett said that hip hop acts Wu-Tang Clan, especially member RZA, Timbaland and J Dilla influenced the first album Beat Pyramid. Other inspirations include the electronic music of Aphex Twin and the cartoon series The Smurfs. At the time, Artrocker described These New Puritans as sounding like “Sheffield and Berlin synths, ’90s alt rock Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo drones, Underworld beats; and all in the most contemporary of contexts”. Although unusual for a rock group, the band often incorporates the same section of music into different songs as refrains.
Before their second album Hidden was released, Barnett revealed that he had been writing music for bassoon and stated that the aim was for a final product where “dancehall meets Steve Reich”. In a 2010 interview with Paul Morley, Barnett described These New Puritans’ new material on Hidden as “very 1970, but also quite 1610, 1950, 1979, 1989, 2005 and 2070”. When performing live during the Hidden era they were often accompanied by a five-piece brass-woodwind ensemble. In 2010 they performed a series of full live performances of Hidden (featuring a brass-woodwind ensemble, Taiko drums, children’s choir, three vibraphonists and live Foley techniques) entitled Hidden Live, at venues such as the Barbican Centre (featuring the Britten Sinfonia), the Pompidou Centre and Berghain. In a May 2010 interview with C.B.Liddell, Jack Barnett revealed that he was interested in Melanesian music and that he anticipated that the next TNPS album would be “quieter.” In 2010 the song ‘We Want War’ featured on the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood soundtrack. Towards the end of 2012 the band remixed “Mutual Core” by Björk, which featured on the remix album Bastards.
In June 2013, they released their third album, Field of Reeds, which featured jazz singer Elisa Rodrigues and the video clip for the single Organ Eternal featured the acclaimed Belgian actress Line Pillet.
These New Puritans returned in November 2018 with the song, “Into the Fire”, and referred to it as part of a forthcoming new album.[14] The song was released on digital and streaming services, as well as a limited edition 7″ single on colored vinyl.
So, armed with those facts (thanks Wikipedia!) – sit back and enjoy this rather abbreviated and somewhat chatty (on the parts of the announcers) concert from Murcia, Spain and recorded live from the stage at the SOS festival on August 4, 2011.
