Spesus Christ
I discovered Spesus Christ through the relaunch of Muxtape, as they were (and to date, still are) one of 12 artists to be ‘featured’ on the main page. Pretty soon after that, I signed up to get demos of ‘Here It Is’ and ‘Truce’, and I remember being so excited by the kind of music that Muxtape seemed to be offering (you could draw comparisons between these guys and Vulture Realty, Francis and the Lights and even Little Boots, all of whom were also featured artists).
The tunes are a massive explosion of glitchy drums, ice-cold synth twinkles, glockenspiels and guitars, over which the vocals, allegedly provided by Cameron Spies (the main man behind Spesus Christ, as well as guitarist/singer in Raised By Robots), resonate eerily. The music retains a sort of mock-melancholy, whereby the dramatic, minor-chord progressions are offset by cheeky yet poignant lyrics, and the brilliantly-crafted layers of glittering melodies. The percussion has bounce, you sure can dance to these tunes, and they pack the kind of punch deliverable only by pop at its most intelligent, both musically and lyrically.
While Francis and the Lights have gone capitalist (after having their entire back-catalogue as a freebie for so long), Little Boots has gone major-label, and Vulture Realty have as good as gone (unfair, I know, but I haven’t heard any new tunes from them in a while), Spesus Christ are keeping the faith, broadcasting to their followers on Tumblr, encouraging fans to establish email contact and seek out the music:
we are releasing our second tape tonight. a split tape with our bestest fwiends, Adventures! With Might. The music on our side will be EP 2 and some bonus treats that (ahem, listen carefully) will not be on the interenet at all until someone rips the tracks off their tape and puts them on the internet pretty soon or until we just put them up there ourselves. either way, if you want this ep now, come to the tape release tonight. otherwise email us at the email and beg and plead and we’ll proabably be nice and send you a link in a matter of days. MAYBE. spesuschrist@gmail.com
To me, these guys have struck a perfect balance between maintaing a ‘pure’, homemade/DIY ethic, and reaching a wider internet fanbase, all while remaining blissfully free from the shackles of major-labeldom. Thanks be to Spesus!
stream and download EP 1 + remixes (for free) at bandcamp, listen at muxtape, follow on tumblr and twitter.
[...] songs at the time. Probably within a week of me posting that, I was contacted by Cameron Spies (of Spesus Christ etc.) who, it turns out, is also a memember of Soap Collectors, and he said that they would send me [...]