This Town Needs Guns

Oxford is home to the oldest University in the English-speaking world, but more recently has been acknowledged as a musical hotbed with a habit of producing some of the most vital bands around today (Radiohead and Foals, to name a few). Their latest export is This Town Needs Guns, a band being hailed as the darling buds of the thriving UK indie scene. The band have toured across Europe with the likes of I Was A Cub Scout, Meet Me In St Louis, Rolo Tomassi and Maps & Atlases and the release of 2007’s split EP with Cats And Cats And Cats garnered critical acclaim from fans and press alike.

This Town Needs Guns entered the studio in April 2008, setting out to find an intricate balance between indie rock, catchy pop and technical prowess, all while ignoring the lure of special effects and studio wizardry. Through this process, their debut full-length Animals was born; a collection of songs that bring to light the band’s pure, clever and earnest song writing ability. Tim Collis’ guitar sounds as though it’s being caressed by 6 hands as his brother, Chris, flings his sticks around the drum kit not wanting to leave any tiny patch un-touched. Bassist Dan Adams completes the rhythm section with his dancey, jazz influenced bass lines while Stuart Smith’s vocals dip and soar, taking this record from thought provoking depths to sky-scraping triumphs.

Arch Woodman & Hope+Belief Collective

Young, French and acoustic, Arch Woodmann is the solo project of a former post-punk/post-rocker who chose to leave - for a while - electricity behind him. After having fallen in love with folk music, he started to focuse on his own production, which mixes the melancholy of Sun Kil Monn to the experimental jazz touch of Do Make Say Think, with a few Broken Social Scene-like poppy choruses. Song after song, Arch Woodmann breaks free from his influences, building a unique universe where he invites several musicians from different music styles (pop, rock, jazz, classical).

Friday 17 April @ la Luna Negra, Bayonne, France 9 PM (12€/8€)