Andrew (Guitar & Vocals)
Hamm (Bass)
Al (Guitar & Vocals)
Graeme (Drums & Vocals)
Sam (Brass, Moog & Organ)
Influences
Watch Youthmovies live on Channel M Music (March 2008) here:
..
Watch the Pillow directed video for 'The Naughtiest Girl Is A Monitor' (2008) here:
Watch the Type2error directed video for 'Ores' (2005) below...
...and please check out the Try Harder Records Myspace here
(Try Harder is run by Al Youthmovie & our friends Sim and Simon
Sounds Like
"...with the release of their exquisite debut album Good Nature it seems that the recognition Youthmovies deserve is sure to follow. Although obvious comparisons can be made to the angular agit-punk pop ferocity of Foals, Youthmovies are far more adept at exploring the more intricate side of the genre, creating soundscapes that rage with a relentless brutality and aching compassion. 5 Stars. The Independent
"Long beloved of the Britrock underground, Youthmovies crackle between dense prog, jazz-trumpet interludes and euphoric vocal melodies that shouldn’t work but do. ’Good Nature’ delights in its own obtuseness. 7/10" NME
"Unlike some pseud peers who claim to experiment in order to mask a lack of writing craft, here’s true innovation. Accessible thanks to its raw beauty, the unexpected twists thrill with every shock, grandiose yet always in thrall to their bold melodies. Compelling in scope, visceral in its questing energy. 8/10." Teletext
"The Oxford quintet has channeled their explosive, expansive tendencies into a powderkeg of a record, making ’Good Nature’ as complicated as it is explosive. In less accomplished hands, songs like ’Surtsey’ and ’Magdalen Bridge’ would be ruined, yet the confidence of Andrew Mears and cohorts turns them into truly mesmerising, taut works of art. If you’re sick of hearing the same old shit then you need Youthmovies in your life. 4/5" Big Cheese
"Good Nature is thick with memorable pop... It’s a thrilling journey, revealing something fresh each time, and while there are passages when you can compare Youthmovies with other bands, ultimately they’re indefinable and incomparable. 9/10" Rock Sound
"Strikingly original and refreshingly capricious in style, the Oxford five-piece have crafted something that, while far from immediate, demands attention and admiration. Good Nature is a glorious cacophony way ahead of its time, cementing the aptitude, innovation and creativity of Youthmovies – and, assuming the world is ready for it, underlines the band as one hell of a bright prospect." bbc.co.uk
"Unclassifiable"
Q Magazine
"...time changes, trumpets and lyrics about ’sweethearts with cataplexy’. Youthmovies brilliantly bridge the divide between emo and prog, showing kids how much better they could have it" Observer Music Monthly
"Good Nature is pretty much faultless. Youthmovies have shown that originality is the ultimate key to longevity, and you can bet your bottom dollar that when most of the here-today, gone-tomorrow scene hoppers fall by the wayside, Mears, English and company will already have conquered their next voyage of discovery. Timeless then, but did you really expect anything less? 8/10" contactmusic.com
"Youthmovies are delicate, thoughtful, challenging and totally original within their genre – they do not try and use shallow gimmicks to do something new but rely on skilful song-writing and technical ability to create songs that on their own contain as much variation as most decent indie albums... My mere words cannot do Good Nature justice. 10/10" student-direct.co.uk
"The lasting union of Youthmovies has borne wonderful fruit in ’Good Nature’. 4.5/5" gigwise.com
"Sinister, challenging and fascinating, ’Good Nature’ is surely one of
the most original and interesting British albums that 2008 will see." The Fly
"...this LP could potentially be an album of the year. Ballsy,
massively ambitious, exuberant and endlessly fascinating, it could just
take over the world, if only enough people learn how to speak its
language" Loud & Quiet
"Good Nature is certainly one of a kind. More charisma and feeling than their peers, Youthmovies not only float between genres on the album as a whole, but even within individual songs... So seamlessly are genres touched upon and moved between that it’s impossible not to appreciate the skill of this Oxford band; wide-ranging though the influences and end-product may be, Youthmovies are both grounded and proficient at everything they turns themselves to... This album is one to fall in love to, even if Youthmovies have spent hours deliberating over just how and when you will do so. And that’s the reason why ‘Good Nature’ is so challenging, exciting and compelling." noizemakesenemies.co.uk
"Youthmovies come from that new Oxford set of bands that use weird time signatures and play up past the 12th fret. Ten years ago they probably would have been called math rock, but since that feels like a dig in this day and age let’s just call them good listening. If you took all the affected bad attitude out of Shellac, all the "hip dad" fanship out of Radiohead, and all the embarassing terribleness out of Mark Ronson, what you’d have left is a pretty good facsimile of their sound (as well as a trashcan full of abominations)." Vice
"it’s the material they’ve documented on ’Good Nature’, which gives the strongest indication as to what their strategy has been all along; taking everything you love about music and delivering it without holding anything back. Good Nature is undoubtedly one of the most exciting, challenging and important release this year will hear.5/5." godisinthetvzine.co.uk
"Youthmovies are clever, original - and sadistically unpredictable." Kerrang!
"Like reading a great book that you think has taken five minutes to read and when you look up it’s dark... like being taken on a journey through varied and strange places... like the soundtrack to a restful but excited mind." Artrocker
"If you’re looking for a band who fly in the face of convention, look no further than Youthmovies" Total Guitar
"Youthmovies just exist in their own bubble and I think that’s amazing. They’re an incredibly progressive, brave pop band" Yannis, Foals
"We basically formed out of me & Rob following Youthmovies around the North of England. We spent all the train journeys taking everything in and planning our next move, which would be ¡Forward, Russia! For a long time a few years ago, Youthmovies were heads above anything happening in the UK - and for me, they still are." Whiskas, Forward Russia
"Like a post-hardcore brainstorming session on where music should go next." Steve Lamacq
We are rubbish at replying to Myspace messages, so if you want to contact us please email one of the following...
Live bookings: debbie@codaagency.com
National & Regional PR: hayley.connelly@mercenarypublicity.com
Online PR: ptspby@aol.co.uk
Radio:ptspby@aol.co.uk
Management: ptspby@aol.co.uk
Label:info@blastfirstpetite
Band: al@tryharderrecords.com
Biography
Ostensibly progressive rock to the uninitiated onlooker, Oxford-based quintet Youthmovies can be a difficult band for the inexperienced to digest in a single sitting; live, their maverick sparks singe the air, songs composed of myriad movements reined in and refined, forced into an awkwardly pop-shaped hole. But, really: this wasn’t ever meant to be difficult.
Forming in 2002 at university, Youthmovies (née Youthmovie Soundtrack
Strategies) began as a two-person affair, utilising tape decks and delay pedals to flesh-out a fledgling sound. Founders English and Mears - attracted to one another’s abilities by a shared fondness for left-of-centre alternative music; the pair would book shows for the likes of Kid606 and Part Chimp while at university - soon sought assistance, and Hammond’s arrival and the employment of Simon Jones on drums, later to commit full-time to Hope Of The States, formed a temporarily finished article.
Jones’ departure in 2003 freed the drummer’s stool up for Murray - a debut EP, ‘Let’s Get Going… You’re Fracturing Me With This Misery’, soon followed - and since then the core four have pursued a very singular creative path, recalling inventors past while always keeping an eye on widening future horizons. Press Youthmovies and they’ll cite King Crimson, Steve Reich and Sonic Youth as cornerstone influences, but their own reach is indicative of their individuality and status in the contemporary indie-rock scene. Sometime tourmates ¡Forward, Russia! can trace their formation back the initial inspiration of witnessing Youthmovies live; 65daysofstatic are regular co-conspirators, remixing Youthmovies’ ‘…spooks the horse’ and sharing a number of tours; and Foals were initially formed, and named, by Mears before the vocalist elected to concentrate 100 per cent on Youthmovies.
Youthmovies’ acclaimed ‘Hurrah!’ EP was released in 2004 on much-lauded indie label Fierce Panda; a re-release a year later incorporated a standalone single, ‘Ores’, the video for which was created by directors Type2Error, whose credits also include Bloc Party and Manic Street Preachers. Since then Youthmovies’ time has rarely been their own for rest and recuperation.
Touring commitments have come thick and fast, with the band supporting Biffy Clyro, Death Cab For Cutie, Mission Of Burma and many more.
Festival appearances - including a memorable improvised set with NYC rapper and poet Saul Williams at the 2005 Leeds Festival and bill-topping appearances at All Tomorrow’s Parties and Truck Festival in 2007 - have been welcome distractions. Special one-off events like the live sound-tracking of films at London’s ICA and the Cambridge Film Festival have attracted new audiences to the band’s idiosyncrasies. A special collaborative EP with two-time tourmate Adam Gnade, ‘Honey Slides’, was released via Try Harder, the label co-founded by English, in 2006. (Try Harder has also released material by Jonquil, Tired Irie, Blood Red Shoes and Foals among others). Now, though, Youthmovies are ready to reveal their debut album, ‘Good Nature’.
Produced alongside Ant Theaker, who also manned the desk for ‘Hurrah!’, Youthmovies’ first long-play release proper is the culmination of more than five years’ hard work. With Scott a full-time member of the Youthmovies unit, the progress from the band’s preceding EP couldn’t be clearer: this is fiery ambition committed to digital disc, the sound of five hungry souls realising all their potential in a blinding flourish of compositional extravagance and exemplary musicianship.
But do not let such on-paper hyperbole for time signature hysteria put you, the potential newcomer, off: ‘elitism’ is a word unknown to Youthmovies, and there’s nothing pretentious about the ten songs that comprise ‘Good Nature’. Immediacy is key, and from the outset onwards this album balances the affecting and accessible with the beguiling and bombastic. It is an album to awaken a mainstream to the talents of five young musicians already enjoying an incredible groundswell of support at a comparative underground level. It is an album to put to bed expectations of impenetrable fret-work and preconceptions of ‘progressive’ being a dirty word.
‘Let’s Get Going…’ were their own words five years ago; with ‘Good Nature’, Youthmovies have well and truly arrived. (Mike Diver, February 2008)
