Gentle Mystics are a band who are mainly based in London and are signed to the record label ‘Emerging Species’, but that is pretty much all the concrete information that I can find out about them. Listening to their music it feels like they are a travelling troupe of musicians (most likely travelling with a circus of sorts). To me they seem very folky and remind me of the bohemian times in Paris (thing Moulin Rouge, but with the occasional rap verse). As a band they are strangely compelling and very unusual, however I think its on the border of pretentious, although I can’t really explain why I get this feeling: I am probably just jealous!

The first song on Gentle Mystics self-titled album is named ‘Sit with me’ and is incredibly creepy. It feels like a mix between a witch casting a spell, Kate Bush and a prostitute driven crazy by syphilis singing in the streets in 18^th century Paris. It’s an interesting song and the singer is very talented, even if it does feel that I am listening to it from a haunted house. The next song is called ‘Vagney Massive’ and it isn’t really a song, it just sounds like one and a half minutes in a French pub a long time ago. I guess that they as a band are trying to set the scene for their album, but this is why it feels a bit pretentious to me. They seem to feel that they are so fabulous that the band sitting chatting creates a song!

The third song is called ‘Spiralling Breeze’, and it gives the album a theme and variation feel to the album. It starts up in much the same way as the first song, but then a slightly techno feel is added to it and then rapping comes in. It is interesting as it takes what is normally found in this type of music and changes it. And the rapping doesn’t actually sound too out of place! ‘Midnight 3 Days Ago’ is an instrumental song that is pretty chilled and laid back with a swing/jazz feel to it. It again feels like it wouldn’t be out of place in an underground Parisian pub while the people drink away their sorrows.

There are fourteen songs on the album and they are all slightly different, however they all mainly follow the same creepy theme of the Parisian underground. It would be repetitive to go into detail about them all, so I won’t. They all use the same sort of musical concepts, but they are all pretty different. I can imagine them playing in a club in the underground scene in London, and it being an amazing night. The music is all very well put together, so if you like music that is pretty unusual and probably the majority of people that are fans are so because that makes them ‘alternative’, then great. I like their music as it is interesting and doesn’t go with the majority of modern music, but it’s just all a bit ‘cool’ for me.

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