Review: Belleruche – Rollerchain

Tru Thoughts’ Belleruche are now on to their fourth full-length release and they’ve made a concerted effort to shake things up a bit. We all know that they do the DIY electro-soul thing well, so it seems that they wanted to show us they can make a darker, more complex sound work too.

Luckily, they don’t disappoint.

#168 – Anchorsong

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Jazz Café for HMV’s next big thing, whilst the show was undoubtedly stolen by Belleruche (hardly surprising what with them being and the headlining act), a special mention needs to be made to Anchorsong. Anchorsong (aka Masaaki Yoshida) is a Japanese artist and producer who uses a sampler, a keyboard and some sort of black magic to create incredible electronic music.  It’s rare enough to find this kind of music that I’ll listen to – let alone really like – but this really hits the spot.

#156 – Belleruche Told Me To

Belleruche live… unbelievable. The Jazz Café in Camden is always a great venue but it takes someone truly special to get the crowd going to the extent that they did. Great songs, great vibe and a fantastic performance made for a really unforgettable evening. I’ll be buying the new album as soon as it comes out in March and I’ll most definitely be seeing them when there UK tour makes it down to Scala on the 31^st of May. I liked them so much that I asked them to send over a few songs that they like (because it’s not all about me) and this is what they sent.
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Curley Moore – Don’t Pity Me (DJ Modest’s selection)

#134 – New Belleruche Single ‘Stormbird’

I was tottering about on the internet today and all of a sudden this song appeared on my Soundcloud. I’m a big fan of Belleruche (I wrote this a little while ago) and thoroughly enjoyed their last album 270 Stories.

#40 – Belleruche

The self-styled ‘Turn-Table Soul’ music makers from North London have been making good music for over five years now. I say it’s good because it is…  They rely on the great vocal chords of Katherine deBoer, Ricky Fabulous playing his guitar and Mr DJ Modest spinning the decks at the back. They are now three albums into what deserves to be a long and successful career, with their latest offering, ‘270 Stories’, released in October of 2010.

They signed to Tru Thoughts in 2007 and released their debut album that year to much critical acclaim. It’s a mix of breaks, soul, funk and electro that comes together to create something that is very different and very easily identifiable as coming from the Tru Thoughts roster.

In 2010 they released their third album, which has a more polished sound than their first. It’s more bass-heavy and arguably more pop-y, but that’s not to do it a disservice. It is still immensely listenable and Katherine’s voice comes to the fore more prominently.

Belleruche – Northern Girls [Buy]