Night in the Sweyepe: Talk in Colour, Floripa, Shoreditch, UK

The Sirens: Talk in Colour (Chris Bangs – Cello and electronics, Dave Oliver – Drums, Kat Arney – Harp, Mary Erskine – Vocals and keyboards, Nick Siddall – Guitar)

The Stump: With a growing reputation for blistering live shows combining dirty bass lines with impressive musicianship, Talk In Colour launched their new album, Colliderscope, with a party at Floripa in east London on Wednesday 23rd May. By turns dark then uplifting, slipping effortlessly between pure instrumentals and vocal driven tracks, Talk In Colour defy easy categorisation. It’s no surprise that the band cite influences as far ranging as Lamb, Battles, The XX and Berlin-era Bowie, with a nod to Afrobeat and Alice Coltrane along the way. Together, the band blends electronic and organic instrumentation into a blistering aesthetic.

The Scene: When East London met fogo de chao – not the churrascaria, but the fire on the ground: Floripa…

the short form of the beautiful and unique flower of Ipanema and a brand new venue in Shoreditch where Brazil and London come together in a hedonistic bohemian cultural fusion.

A mix of all convivialities – a Brazilian influenced restaurant, a bar for the globe, a London bloc party club, an Ipanema-inspired colonial bordello, an idyllic sunset circus and indeed none of the above.

Where contradiction is the métier. The clash of cultures is not a war but a love-in where unadulterated fusion is always better than the real thing. The melting-pot-friendly magpie-like character of London sets it apart from other European cities and as Londoners and citizens of the world we celebrate destabilising the established order of things with Brazil as the springboard and benchmark.

The Sound: Colliderscopic. If Four Tet’s angels echo, Talk in Colour’s angels cry rhapsodic tears. Talk in Colour is a sonic second coming of Icarus – where in lieu of the sun, emanates the corona of the disco ball. Melodies move as wings of wax like fine vinyl pavements melting beneath a Bossa Nova sole. Acoustic and synth harmonies converge over harp, and as the former Shadow Orchestra crescendos it is impossible to deny Talk in Colour’s humble hubris to craft a sound as distinct as such… subtle but certain, with a strong worldly rhythm kept all the way through… Strings, keys, and percussion ride within and without each other, soundtrekking through the Amazon beneath the liquid sun’s pineapple rain. DJ Shadow eclipses Daedelus’ Invention with no handlebars here – a bit like when Fogo de Floripa met the Flobots. Talk in Colour takes their time, and that is the beauty of their musicology… the sonic scape where is no rush, except that of endorphins to the aural cavities.