News

Jukebox Collective Release Debut Single

• 29th Jun 2010

Hotly-tipped Jukebox Collective will release a brand new single, ‘Icon Parade’ on 9 August (Supremo Records). This follows the success of ‘Lost and Found’, the first song the band recorded, self-produced and self-released, which won them a flurry of blog-buzz and a Top 15 entry into the Hype Machine chart.

Jukebox Collective came together in a serendipitous meeting between guitarist Greg and vocalist Kev. Greg was born in Apartheid-era South Africa, where access to music was limited, so he looked abroad for influence (“it wasn’t all Paul Simon,” he notes wryly, acknowledging that that might have come in handy during the Afrobeat resurgence of recent years). Now living in Hackney, Greg met Kev – who is actually registered blind – by chance, after two separate musical projects had ended. They quickly hit it off, and began writing and recording together. The name ‘Jukebox Collective’ emerges, then, as a neat summary of their everything-in-one-pot approach to music, not to mention the strange sequence of events that saw them form.

Having fallen in love with Factory Records, ‘Icon Parade’ is similarly inspired by this sense of the DIY: specifically, the sheen-free production and all round genius of James Murphy, and the DFA collective in general. On ‘Icon Parade’, Jukebox Collective add their own peculiar twist to this ‘Disco Punk’ sound, mixing up sharp guitar with driving synths, and dramatic tempo shifts against an arch, charismatic vocal delivery.

Though, musically, ‘Icon Parade’ sounds as if it’s just stumbled in from a boozy night out in New York, the song was largely recorded in the band’s East London bedroom: the band, in their own words, “mistrust” studios in general. Lyrically, again, London leaves its traces on ‘Icon Parade’. Guitarist Greg explains: “the song is about a neighbour who keeps getting hassled by these kids, and ends up going a bit mad. The idea behind ‘Icon Parade’ is him making all these floats of American heroes, like you get in parades, just to distract himself from the abuse. So the song is supposed to sound quite paranoid.”

Jukebox Collective will announce plans for further releases shortly, whilst completing work on their debut album. They will also play the following London dates surrounding the release of ‘Icon Parade’:

16 June LONDON Proud Galleries
25 June LONDON The Silver Bullet
23 July LONDON No Fiction @ Powers
11 August LONDON 93 Feet East