Kiwi quintet The Naked & Famous are set to bring their summery southern hemisphere electro-pop to the wintry shores of Britain in 2011. The group formed as a duo in 2008 when Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith met at an Auckland music school. The pair grew up listening to Massive Attack, Bjork, PJ Harvey and Tricky, taking their name from one of the Bristol artist's lyrics.
The pair were joined by Aaron Short and found early acclaim in their native New Zealand with EPs This Machine and No Light. It wasn't long before they were making their way across the Pacific, winning over a host of US blogs with impressive performances at Austin's SXSW and New York's CMJ festivals in 2008.
David Beadle and Jesse Wood soon joined the live band to complete the quintet. Often compared to MGMT and Passion Pit, the group found mainstream success in their homeland when the track Young Blood became the first debut single to reach number 1 in New Zealand for 16 years, winning the group the country's Silver Scroll award in the process.
Fiction Records picked the track up for a UK release and it wasn't long before it captured the interest of Radio 1 DJs Fearne Cotton and Nick Grimshaw. The forthcoming re-working of their self-produced album Passive Me, Aggressive You is sure to cement their place in the hearts of a horde of new UK fans.
The band have announced they will play their first full tour of the UK in February, including a headline NME Awards show in London on the 15th. The Kiwi five-piece played three sold out shows here in November. They have been tipped across the board and feature in the BBC Sound of 2011 Poll and NME’s New Stars of 2011 issue.
The dates are:
Tue 15th Feb London Heaven link
Thurs 17th Feb Sheffield Leadmill link
Fri 18th Feb Nottingham Bodega link
Sun 20th Feb Glasgow O2 ABC 2 link
Tue 22nd Feb Liverpool Shipping Forecast link
Wed 23rd Feb Oxford Jericho link
Thurs 24th Feb Cambridge ARU link
Sat 26th Feb Southampton Unit (clubnight) link
Mon 28th Feb Birmingham O2 Academy 3 link
Tue 1st Mar York Fibbers link
Wed 2nd Mar Leeds Cockpit 2 link
Tickets are available now for all dates from the above ticket sites.
All tickets are priced at £7 each with the exception of London which is priced at £10 + 60p to charity, and Southampton which costs £5.
The Naked & Famous’ debut album ‘Passive Me, Aggressive You’ will be released on March 14th, following new single ‘Young Blood’ on March 7th (both on Fiction Records).