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Biography

Formed back in 2005, Glow were an instant hit on the local scene. From their first gig the band was known for its cacophony of electronic beauty, unique melodies, unearthly synthesisers, blissed-out trumpet, heavily treated bass and thick, layered beats. Since that first gig, Glow have recorded sessions and full live shows for the BBC and have been tipped by presenters on BBC Radio Wales, Radio 1 and 6 Music.

The three members - Ben, Jim and Rob - all studied music at Southampton Uni, but despite this they’ve managed to keep the music accessible to everyone. Striving to bring a fresh approach to the electronic music scene, Glow use laptops, keyboards and controllers to compliment the more traditional voice, trumpet and guitars. Everything that you hear is played live - no backing tracks!

2008 is the year of Glow. Their first full studio album, entitled ‘I, Yeah!’ has been released to critical acclaim and extensive use of positive hyperbole. But albums and singles are always second in Ben, Jim and Rob’s hearts. Their real love lies in the live show. And what a show it is!

Press Reviews

‘I, Yeah!’ review - Steve Wright, Venue magazine

Bristol-based trio Glow met while studying music at uni. You might expect, then, an album of virtuosic knob-twiddling and lab-tested musical perfection: and, though that does fuel this extraordinary debut, it runs more on a sheer fascination with music and all its strange, atmospheric possibilities. Thickly layered beats and samples, melancholy, sighing glides of brass, twitches and swerves from sequencers and keyboards: textbook electronica thus far. What’s far less expected is their pairing with Ben Johnson’s downbeat, almost nakedly honest vocals. There are echoes of Radiohead’s nervy electronica or Spiritualized’s celestial comedown drone, but there’s more warmth, emotion and vulnerability than either. Highlights: ’Open Your Heart’, a duetted autopsy of a relationship; ‘Tape Riser’, a twitching, bewitching beast, feverishly kinetic like The The’s epic synth/drum thumpalongs. And ‘Mathematikoi’ simply entrances: synth and trumpet that sound like a new planet being discovered.

4/5 [venue website]

God Is In The TV - NOW HEAR THIS #2

Hailing from Bristol via Liverpool and Newport come heart stopping three piece Glow. Inventively splicing together comedown break beats akin to Fourtet dabbling with Aphex Twin - all delicious aching brass, glistening guitar lines that hark back to the work of Ride and hypnotic vocals that sigh and ache and reach, giving warmth to these electronic manoeuvres. Their dynamic structures even bring to mind the work of “Kid A” Radiohead without the all pervading sense of gloom. Instead, they create a hypnotic, heart melting sound that’s simultaneously life affirming and post apocalyptic, the glow on your child’s face after a screaming fit. It should be heard by many more ears than it currently is. Their debut album “I, Yeah” is out now digitally for the bargain price of five English pounds. As for the album supposedly being dead, each song burrows its way into the next with the awe inspiring power and warmth of Spiritualized at their best. The afterglow of creation never sounded so heartening.

Original article

Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales - review of ‘I, Yeah!’:

[excerpt from Adam's MySpace blog, available here]

… Glow humanise the experimental and electronic. The horns and guitar arpeggios give the blazing digital invention a human face. Then there is Ben’s spidery vocal lines singing lyrics that are naked and vulnerable. He is not an Anti Christ, he is not The Resurrection, I suspect that he doesn’t lay claim to having Ice Hockey Hair, either. He doesn’t hide behind braggadiccio or quirky metaphors. He is a sensitive and intelligent young man in a world that frequently chastises men who dare to be sensitive and intelligent.

This is an album of ambition and great bravery. I think it is one of the greatest musical achievements of any Welsh band, ever. I’m prone to hyperbole, I know, but I do think that ’I, Yeah!’ is truly special: a celebration of excellence and originality at a time when insipid conservatism still appears to define who gets the media’s attention. But for all its ambition, it’s an album that never forgets to keep an emotional heart beat pulsing away in the background. …

Jane Oriel, Drowned in Sound:

Let it be known that I do not know these guys personally, and neither is my sister going out with the bassist. I’m filing Glow’s first entry on DiS as a channel for my growing obsession with this band, pure and simple. Glow give all their music away for free. That’s a no-brainer if you’re crap but if your sonic fruits are as lustrous and as beguiling as theirs, this act of generosity is either genius, folly or both.

Straight outta Bristol, Glow are three men and a trumpet, as well as keys, guitars and an assortments of gizmos and screens. Tonight they’re filiing a support slot in Newport and look so happy to be here. They open with ‘The Game Of Black And White’, a track that’s already enjoying BBC airplay round these parts. Grinning bashfully from under his floppy fringe, lead singer Ben adds an air of innocence to the fray of blippy beats. He’s part choir boy, part wig-out monster, but fully engaging as his clasically inspired vocal lines add a conciliating gloss to rumbling synth, bass and frenetic trumet drop-ins.

‘Ghosts’ follows, extolling the band’s download policy: despite Glow being almost unknown, the song is already a sing-along favourite. Jim alternates between his trumpet and a noise machine with hyper-kinetic intensity, unable to stay still for a moment. He grins and bobs to the beat, and they all grin, amusing themselves with their playing as though taking part in a bouncing parlour game. Their charm is gargantuan, as is their abiltiy to present a robust filigree and launch it skywards on the wings of joyous escapism.

“We have a CD,” announces Ben, between songs. “Well, it’s not really a CD. We burnt it on our computer. There are ten of them here. Help yourselves.”

Initial polite sidling mutates rapidly into piranha feeding time and all the CDs have gone.

The set is short and Glow close proceedings with ‘Broken Wings’. It soars like a glider over fields of green, drenched in optimistic melancholia - an expression Glow excel in. At its height, the full-on emotions thrash the boys as they attack their instruments. Ben is losing it but doesn’t know where to throw himself as the music takes him over. The best focus he can summon resembles a kitten furiously shaking water from its paws, and his passion is adorable. Without a whiff of arrogance or apology, Glow love what they are warpped up in so much, and it shows.

Do yourself a big favour: download, then gig, then adore.

Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales:

Glow quickly plugged their odd kit together and tried to deafen us with squelps and teeth-loosening sheets of feedback, but we were not to be disillusioned.

The only threat to the night was the low number of people in the pub.

Glow went on seconds after they had finished soundchecking and people began to filter inside from their arks and canoes. I don’t think they’d heard anything like Glow. Their songs duck and weave, bobbed along by rhythms that give a foundation for the rest of their ’sound’ to go as fucking mental as they like. Their vocal melodies, for example, are a study in the snaky and original. At first, you’re not entirely sure that Ben can sing. That sounds like an horrendous criticism; but it ain’t.

His vocal lines are unlike anything else in the Welsh musical canon. Not a bad achievement for someone from Wallasey.

Glow are odd. Flitting from one underused interval to another, desperate to never fall on anything that might be deemed cliched or old hat.

And, all around Ben, and underneath him, the songs RISE. They build and build, amid spinning arpeggios, rolls of bass and rhythm, beautiful and fluid lines of echoed trumpet and filtered sweeps and swerves from the arrayed sequencers and keyboards.

It’s a unique and compelling sound.

The audience - who had now swollen like my soggy quiche to fill every nook and cranny - loved Glow.

Daniel Melia, gigwise.com:

The eleven minutes of this on this demo are some of the most beautiful Gigwise has heard all year. Glow are a shining success … [more]

Adam Walton, adamwalton.co.uk:

…like coming up on a bad trip in the midst of some heartbreakingly soulless urban neonscape, surrounded by concrete and vicious orange vapour trails…

Tim, Lo-fi Hi-fi:

Woozy glacial poptronica, weaving lilting vocal purrs, ebbing scuttle beats and a quiet majesty not unakin to Radiohead’s forays into laptop weirdness. Bonus points for having a flugelhorn too…