Ladyhawke Is The Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year

Admittedly, I have a tendency to proclaim everything music-related I fall in love with as “the best thing ever! In the history of anything!“. In fact, in the past two weeks, I’ve called Danish pop group Alphabeat “the best pop group ever!” (someone bring them out here, please – 10,000 Nights Of Thunder makes me unbelievably happy), declared Robert Forster’s Let Your Light In Babe and Chris Stills‘ Doors To The World “pretty much the most beautiful song… ever!”, and I’ve also been quietly loudly confident that David McCormack & The Polaroids’ unexpectedly heart wrenching tracks Lonely and You Are Over Me are “probably the best ever songs to cry to while riding your bike in the rain” (a specific but important genre).

But let us not take my enthusiastic dribbling idiot approach to talking about music and turn it into an excuse to ignore my passionate rantings, but instead – let’s all go completely mental over the genius of Ladyhawke.

Shall we?Former member of Wellington rockers Two Lane Blacktop, female half of duo Teenager (alongside PNAU dude Nick Littlemore), and buddy of Peaches, Pip Brown is currently giving music writers around the world a raging aural horn with her work as Ladyhawke.

Rolling Stone’s Hype Machine blog gave a nod in Ladyhawke’s direction back in mid-June, and The Guardian’s Paul Lester couldn’t help but gush over her aceness.

We’re going to stick our necks out on this one and predict that Ladyhawke are going to be massive. … We haven’t been this sure of a New Band of the Day’s commercial potential since Duffy, although in that case the inevitability depressed us. This time, we have no qualms about the impending mega-stardom of the former punk rocker who once performed at CBGBs with a bunch of Stooges/Clash wannabes called Two Lane Blacktop, named after the 1971 existential road movie starring Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and James Taylor. Superb debut single and future worldwide smash hit (our necks are hurting now) Paris Is Burning couldn’t be more inauthentic with its synthetic music and vocals: the way Brown intones with exquisitely distracted insouciance over the fabulous machine melody like a solo-femme synth-pop star in waiting, well, just call her Gary Nuwoman.

Oh god, he’s so right. I cannot stop listening to Back Of The Van today, it is making giddy with Fleetwood Mac-ish joy. And check out this fucking fantastic retro clip for it!

Amazing. Just amazing. I can’t decide if I want to be Ladyhawke, or marry her.

Here’s the clip for the single ‘Paris Is Burning’ (another fantastic track, which you may have heard on radio already as I believe Triple J played it a fair bit).

And if you take a look at her MySpazz, there are plenty more great tunes waiting to be listened to. I am incredibly excited about the album which should be out in the latter half of September, and totally gutted I missed out on seeing Ladyhawke over the weekend due to other social commitments. I’m punching myself as we speak.

DID YOU GO? HOW WAS IT? MIND-BLOWING? PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REVIEW IN COMMENTS.

Anyway. Ladyhawke is pretty much the best thing in the world… until I find the next best thing.

MORE: Ladyhawke on MySpace