Absolutely delightfully deranged. Harlequin Dynamite Marching Band be their name, a rag bag collective of gypsies, jazz heads and one suspects freaky acid casualties no doubt mind fried and tattooed with a Beeheartian birth mark on their psyche, who come straying and bathed in the warming glow of fellow Scouse psych folk minstrels Stealing Sheep. Once upon a time – June to be precise – they released a debut platter – ‘Jonah’ was its name – with gnashing of teeth and a hearty harrumph it appears it scuttled beneath our radar – I’m guessing yours to. Unfazed and with a skip in their hearts off they went on a festival trail wowing all who braved the treks to outsider tents, drawn in pied piper like by the puzzlingly mysterious exotic vibes weaving through the air and the sight of a merry playing troupe so vast and large in number they qualify to having their own postcode in Liverpool town . New tunes – two of them – have been prepped for your excitable ear in the shape of ’loneliness’ and ’singing int rain’ due for release, love and affection via kazimier in December. Now by rights and given airplay exposure ’loneliness’ could and should upend those pre festive predictions and prove something of a surprise hit, applying elements of fellow Liverpool sons Wizards of Twiddly and more notably Apatt and dashed with say three parts Popticians, the Harlequin ones cook up a positively delirious sub 9 minute stew. Twisted, cuckoo and frankly contagious, ’loneliness’ shuffles, sighs, snoozes and swoons upon a crooked musicalia on Sunday parade serving out wonky slabs of snake charmed love notes cobbled in a forgotten big band vintage that to these ears sounds not unlike a winter blow Vernon Elliott conducting a posse made up of Winston giles orchestra and l’augmentaion types tripping to an alluring re-tooling of white town’s ’your woman’. ’singing int rain’ over on the flip is blessed with a celebratory New Orleans styled funeral groove before tripping out to a rollicking zig zagging skat jazz punk funky blaze of wiring kookiness as though an acid fried Higsons in a face off with the Native Hipsters. The dogs danders in short.
Pretty smart video that accompanied their debuting ‘jonah’ platter……
the sunday experience 