Hometown: Liverpool.
The lineup: Joshua Gorman (drums), Jake Brown (bass), Mark Jones (lead vocals/synth/guitar), Femi Fadero (guitar/backing vocals), Thomas Murray (guitar/backing vocals).
The background: Gulf could go either way. They could be massive, the Resurrection, or they could just fizzle out towards cult curio status. The fate of Childhood and Temples – limited sales and medium-to-rave reviews, despite being as good as guitar-pop has got for years – suggests the latter. They’re more likely to be a latterday Wild Swans or Cook Da Books – those early-80s purveyors of dreamy Scouse-pop whom Gulf somewhat resemble – than a new Stone Roses.
Besides, despite the limpid loveliness of their guitars and lilting, aching melodies, they don’t seem to be one of those I-wanna-be-adored type bands. They’re not post-Smiths/Roses wannabes or big-mouthed Saviours of Indie, mainly because there is no indie left to be saved, and anyway, they’re too mired in melancholia to have delusions of grandeur.
They’re letting the music do the talking; they’re not even sending out press photos – instead they are sending out psychedelic artwork . There is talk of them “going beyond trippy guitar music, reaching areas such as disco, funk, and even hip-hop”, although “funk” suggests a heavy bottom and really Gulf’s music is lighter than air, as diaphanous as it is dancey.
They have also been compared to Electronic, and that’s not far off: singer Mark Jones gives good northern naif over Gulf’s shimmering indie disco. The band themselves describe what they do as “pop in swirling technicolour” and that comes closer: the songs sound drunk on their own pop potential, Jones’s Bernard Sumner-ishly boyish voice soars this way and that, refusing to take the obvious route, but still effortlessly melodic. The three (!) guitarists chop out chord sequence after affecting chord sequence as producer Darren Jones (Maccabees, Bill Ryder-Jones) piles on the reverb for maximum heady effect. No wonder there is a lot of label interest – not as much as there might have been in 1994 or 2004, maybe, but a good few are interested. Rumours say it’s between Bella Union and Domino.
We’ve heard six tracks and at least five of them are winners: big hits, as we say, in a world where this sort of stuff still charts. But ours is not to worry about a band’s commercial future, but to revel in the enveloping moment, and Gulf have several of those.
Prime is an exhilarating rush; psych in the sense of total possibility rather than drug delirium per se. Emitter is three minutes of sheer pop bliss, like Burt Bacharach if he was the secret writer for the Roses: “I’m upside down,” sings Jones, a feeling of disorientation just waiting to be shared by genuflecting audiences. Tell Me Again is a gush of guitar gorgeousness, although evidently the agenda here isn’t so much public celebration as the exploration of private grief (“We’ll be banging our heads against the wall … Tell me again why we fight?”). Talk suggests their default setting is wistful-sweet, and when it builds to its climax it’s like being barraged by sugar. By Runner even non-musos will be appreciating the lustrous jazziness of the chord changes, and wondering when was the last time they heard guitars create anything this ravishingly pretty. What the indie world is waiting for – what’s left of it anyway.
The buzz: “The reverb-drenched, crooning vocals [prompt] unavoidable comparisons to Tame Impala.”
The truth: Gulf - the space between all other rising guitar bands and Gulf.
Most likely to: Be adored.
Least likely to: Break into heaven.
What to buy: Tell Me Again is out now. Gulf play their debut London show at the Old Blue Last on November 20.
File next to: Electronic, Cook Da Books, Outfit, Wild Swans.
Links: twitter.com/gulfmusicuk
Ones to watch: Lapsley, Fufano, Tobias Jesso Jr, 14th, Cajsa Siik.
