thenewno2 - You Are Here (August 1, 2008)

I believe I'm not the only person who started listening to thenewno2 just because one of the Beatles juniors was said to be involved in it. Back then the project had only a promo EP released, which consisted of four beautiful tracks and immediately found its place in my playlist for months. It was a real revelation for me - discovering that George Harrison's son wouldn't go playing some outdated old-fashioned music as many would have expected, especially after hearing what two sons of another late Beatle used to play. On the contrary, Dhani Harrison surprised me with contemporary sound and wonderfully up-to-date musical trends that may have been originally based on what his father has invented, but eventually evolved into techniques that mark the indie rock as we know it today.

But let's be fair though: thenewno2 is a project of two, not just Dhani. Oliver Hecks is a multi-instrumentalist who's also done all the art-works and designs for the project, came up with concepts for videos and had them filmed. Also, band's first album You Are Here was based on demos written by both Oli and Dhani. Several songs from the album were available as a free download on the Rock Band music video game series, the rest of them were sold via iTunes. One of the most remarkable tracks from the album is, undoubtedly, Another John Doe, which brings up social issues and would've been something late George Harrison would approve. This topic goes throughout the whole LP just like a thin red line, sometimes almost invisibly, but yet it's still possible to sense it on some level, while the visible one is full of casual words about love and relationship. Yomp, for instance, is one like that: 


I would also mark out Crazy Tuesday and Wind Up Dead as memorable songs, although the album is mostly written in the same style which makes it hard to pick out songs. However, I'd strongly advise to listen to the bonus tracks, too, with People being my personal favorite. And it's a real pity Choose What You're Watching never made it to the album, for it would perfectly fit into You Are Here. I do expect it to be included into thenewno2's next LP, hoping the latter will be released someday soon. But before that - there's a whole album to savour, so - let's! 

thenewno2 links: Official site | Myspace | Twitter | Facebook


0 comments: