Bob's your...er...

Despite having the seventh worst band name in musical history*, Grandadbob, who were brought to my attention this week, are quite special and deserving of your hard-earned wodge in the next few months. To my shame, their first album Waltzes For Weirdos passed me by completely, and their second, Garden of Happiness, is due in the shops sometime over the summer. Trawling the web to find out a little more about them, I discover that they're a duo from Sheffield, that they are plying their trade at various festivals this summer, and that they're signed to Norman Cook's Southern Fried label.

Their brand of pastoral electronica will probably be popular with anyone who likes, oooh, let's say Air, Beth Orton, or Zero 7. But I particularly like the track that I'm linking to below. Called Glow In The Dark, it sounds like nothing so much as the Flaming Lips if they roped in William Orbit for production duties. Fantastic, in other words. If this isn't enough to persuade you, the new album also features the legendary Brian Blessed giving it large at the start of the title track. Even more endearingly, the Shakespearian colossus and full-time mentalist apparently agreed to lend his stentorian vocal chords for a token fee and a jar of marrow chutney, the recipe for which is printed on the CD inlay. And when was the last time that the Kaiser Chiefs let you see their chutney recipes, eh?

Download Glow in The Dark (deleted Feb 2007--sorry!)

More Grandadbob info

Buy their CDs and vinyl here

* The six that are worse, in case you were wondering, are Kajagoogoo, Lovespitlove, Gnarls Barkley, Crispy Ambulance, Hoobastank and Oingo Boingo.