New Carnival… Bristol Ravers
Remember the name… New Carnival
Published on February 26th, 2012 | Jonny Abrams
Next up in Rocksucker’s series of hearty recommendations come Bristol’s finest purveyors of atmospheric trance-pop, New Carnival. Have a listen, now…
“You Can Call Me Thomas”
Who are you and where do you come from?
We’re a three-piece band called New Carnival and we’re based in Bristol.
How would you describe your music, if pushed?
We play indie-dance music, with heavy bass lines, (hopefully) catchy guitar riffs and vocal lines over some steady beats. We take quite a bit of influence from roots and reggae dub, and also ska, but really we love our dance and indie music, and a combination of the two seemed like quite a sensible idea.
Who or what are your primary inspirations for music-making?
When we first started writing tracks we were big into Foals’ Antidotes and Total Life Forever, both really inspiring records, along with The Maccabees’ Wall of Arms; they sort of got us going. And then we went backwards a bit and got heavily in to The Police, New Order, Paul Simon, Madness and Bronski Beat, added to the more recent artists like Blood Orange, SBTRKT and Metronomy. We really enjoyed some of the more dance-orientated grooves on some of the tracks and that was when we started to incorporate a more electronic vibe in to things, like drum samplers and the like.
Where can we hear your music?
We’re on YouTube, Facebook and Soundcloud.
“Wait and See”
Which have been your most exciting gigs so far?
Our first gig ever in London at the Catch bar in Shoreditch was pretty fun, and then we’ve played some house parties that got a bit out of hand. Our first gig in Bristol was really good and also we just recently supported Casiokids in Birmingham who were amazing, that was a great gig. We also played at a beer festival near Cirencester which was awesome, except there was a woman shouting at us all night asking if we could play Dirty Dancing. We weren’t too sure how that one went and whether or not it was a particular song she wanted or just the whole soundtrack. Sadly we gave her neither, but that night was a laugh.
Got any more coming up? (Gigs, that is…)
Well, we’re just in the process of organising another Bristol gig and another gig in Birmingham, so keep checking our Facebook page for details. I think it will probably be sometime late March.
Recommend three albums that we might not have heard of…
Really enjoyed The Greats and the Happenings by Post War Years, Dubliftment by Vibronics and anything released by the Hot Creations label.
Any other unsigned artists you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?
Well, we’re really excited about Trophy Wife releasing their debut album and we’re hopefully going to be working with their producer sometime in April so we’re looking forward to hearing how that sounds.
New Carnival, thank you.
“Lucre’s on the Run” (Live at The Bull and Gate)
About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
