Glass Animals incorporates a mix of synth pop, indie, and hip-hop influences into their music. The Oxford, England-based band is made up of singer/guitarist Dave Bayley, guitarist/keyboardist Drew MacFarlane, bassist/keyboardist Edmund Irwin-Singer and drummer Joe Seaward.
Though they didn’t start making music together until they finished school, Bayley and Seaward have been friends since childhood. Bayley had been writing and recording songs in his spare time, and ultimately drafted Seaward, MacFarlane and Irwin-Singer to play with him. They released their debut EP, Leaflings, in 2012 while they were still attending college.
Check out the super eerie track, “Golden Antlers” from their debut EP, Leaflings.
Bayley had plans to go to medical school after graduation, but Glass Animals captured the attention of acclaimed producer Paul Epworth, and he signed them to his label in 2013. They released the Glass Animals EP, which included the single “Black Mambo.”
In 2014, the band released their debut album, Zaba, which blended electronics with indie guitar music and was co-produced by Bayley and Epworth.
Raise your hand if you LOVE stop-motion videos!! Truly an under-appreciated artform, stop-motion and clay-mation videos remind me of being a child in the mid-80s, when this style of video was popular, before computer animation and robust special effects. Watching it makes me feel nostalgic for a simpler time – Glass Animals’ “Pools” from their debut album, Zaba.
Also from from their debut album, Zaba, here is the video for “Hazy.”
Two years touring the world and gathering stories from the people they encountered, the band used these tales as lyrical inspiration for their second album, called How to Be a Human Being, which was the band’s first concept album. They began recording it in late 2015, and released it last month (August 2016), each song telling the story of a different character from their journey.
This is the video for “Life Itself” from How to Be a Human Being. As you can probably tell, it’s the story of one of their many characters that inspired their concept album.
This is “Cane Suga” a very catchy track from How to Be a Human Being, though it has no music video.
I saved the BEST for last! This is so totally me on a lazy Sunday of binge-watching Shameless, or Orange is the New Black, etc…. It kinda has a retro video game feel to it, doesn’t it? From How to Be a Human Being, this is “Season 2, Episode 3.”
