PureVolume

The Alto 45 jukebox is now up and running at www.alto45.co.uk.

Happy Capitalist Recordings now have a downloads section on their site, where you can download all of our Mp3s, as well as buy Cd's and Vinyl.

James Boyce sings and plays guitar, Steve Hansey plays bass and Joe Bear plays drums. We formed in 1999 almost by accident having been in a band together at school, after a chance weekends playing around with four tracks and FX pedals.

We spent the weekends and holidays of the next year writing and recording songs in our ramshackle studio in rural Suffolk before releasing 'The Beck EP'. This was followed a year later by the three track 'Leaving Suburbia EP'. By this time we'd gathered the courage to venture out of the countryside into the bright lights of Norwich to start playing occasional gigs. We love broken guitars, tape players, cheap keyboards, distorted basses, omnichords, FX pedals, drum machines, harmoniums, telephones, record players, vibroslaps, maracas and all the mid range audio frequencies.

We've been described as:
'melancholic lo-fi pop, with noisy bits'
'punk for tired people'
'poppy then weird then loud!'

Our MySpace.com profile

REVIEWS

DROWNEDINSOUND.COM

Alto 45 101101 (Happy Capitalist)

Ever have that dream where The Beta Band are trying to do Eighties new-wave but end up sat woozily around a camp-fire with indie-loving Space Invaders machines instead? Me neither. Which is why you should be pleased Alto 45 are here to show you what youre missing. And yes, if their debut album 101101 is anything to go by, you are missing out.

A breezy, hazy whirlpool of understated Casio-esque programming is what seems to underpin a lot of these songs, but the real charm lies in the sentiment theyre trying to put across, be it all floral and cutesy or, more likely, bitter and heartbroken. Its also commendable how they can switch gear so often without losing a sense of continuity to the whole thing, even if in general the LP goes from crunchy interstellar synth-fi to slow, lulling indie-scapes. For instance, Look Who You Know has the chiming guitar lines and pounding drum beats that suggest theyve all suddenly got Phil Spector, whilst immediately after it Leaving Suburbia thrashes about in the tested quiet/loud manner, dizzy with its own feeling of unrequited love and desire to push that guitar pedal just a little bit harder. Some songs such as the banjo-tastic Moses Gunn are so laid-back theyre almost comatose, but what they lack in energy they make up for in sheer moody magnificence. Its best, though, when they snap, crackle and pop in all the right places, which in tunes like the sweet, synthetic pop brilliance of
Hospital Song and The Plan is many right places indeed. From the military drum beginning to the speak-and-spell reprisal ending, from the lovelorn cries to the lullabies, this album is as subtly infectious as it is stealthily intoxicating.
For those about to pop, but fancy a lie down too.
- Thomas Blatchford

Rating: 4/5

VOICES FROM DOWNTRODDENDOM

ALTO 45 - 101101 (Happy Capitalist)

101101 is the tremendous debut album from post-pop stars-in-waiting Alto 45. It's crammed full of charming lo-fi pop experiments and hums with dry English whimsy. Imagine, if you will, a more experimental version of Clearlake's lovable jumble-sale power-pop, and then you're pretty close. (There are also shades of Blur, Looper and the Electric Soft Parade buried in the mix just for good measure).

Alto 45 have wriggled free of suburbia and they're armed-to-the-teeth with glockenspiels, synths and jangly guitars. Don't be scared they're lovable pop-eccentrics, they mean you no harm. (In case you're wondering, they're the ones dressed in white lab coats!) In time, they may well prove to be our own homegrown answer to the sublime Grandaddy.

The songs on 101101 represent a subdued-yet-joyful celebration of the little things in life that matter. Alto 45 are another little thing in life that matters.