Aspirations are an elusive beast. No press release, no myspace info, so they clearly want the music to speak for itself. So let me do my own introductions. Aspirations – a British Columbian duo who started as long ago as this year, and who use laptops to sample their favourite bands and produce something akin to ‘computer Hot Water Music’. If that makes any sense at all.
The geezer who sings sounds exactly like he was in HWM or Small Brown Bike. Gruff and addicted to strong cigarettes. There is a Jawbreaker cover on here too, so its clear where the influences are. So it’s nice to see that they do something a bit different to all that. Sampling bands they like, it all ends up sounding quite laid back. HxC attitude with NME credentials.
The pair choose their samples wisely – it even gets a bit funky at times. The problem for me, especially as it’s just a 5 song EP, is that it’s all a bit unsatisfying. Not enough time for the ideas to really go anywhere. The artwork is the uber-trendy, myspace crew stuff that is becoming so clichéd that it will soon die a shameful, shameful death, and this hints at a band who will come and go pretty quick. Let’s hope they take these ideas and make something big though. They could go on to great things I reckon.
Mike
