Saturday 7 November 2009

Marina and the Diamonds - Mowgli's Road

Just over a year ago we posted “If Mr Kipling made bands this would be another one of his exceedingly good ones.” That quote was in relation to the feisty, theatrical and quirky Marina and the Diamonds. One year on as Marina prepares to release her debut major label single Mowgli’s Road, that quote holds true.

Mowgli’s Road originally featured as the B side to the Marina and the Diamonds debut single Obsessions and has been re-recorded for its own release. The accompanying video is a highly entertaining performance piece, where we see Marina hoofing and flexing her muscles in a way never seen before. Mowgli’s Road stomps and romps as if a Latvian girl called Ani Kolachova had recorded the tune as an entry for a king of the jungle shot at the Eurovision song contest. It represents the warped and fun way that the UK is currently pushing out some quite unique and non formulaic pop acts, who unusually write their own songs and are not relying on their sexuality to sell their music. With it’s cuckoo call and lyrics of “You say Y-E-S to everything,” Mowgli’s Road is a blustering piece of sassy gloss that faces just one problem - it may be too oddball for the mainstream, yet too operatically pop for indie kids. Mind you, we thought that about Florence and the Machine last year, and that hasn’t stopped her. Besides, from what we have heard of Marina and the Diamonds unreleased material, she has some more obvious tunes in the bag ready and waiting. Mowlgli’s Road is released on 16th November through 679 / Warner.

If Mr Kipling really had made bands, we think Marina would be the angel slice in amongst the jam tarts.

2 comments:

Mistress Wanda said...

I really want to like MATD but they're just not quite doing it for me. Don't know why. Love this video. Kooky is good!

Breaking More Waves Blog said...

Wait till next year when further singles are released. You may then find yourself won over (or otherwise pushed in the other direction !)