In case you’ve not noticed the excited rumblings, murmurings, and occasional excited yelps surrounding this mystery band for the new decade, let us introduce you to Summer Camp. With identities more shrouded in mystery than even the most meticulous of caped crusaders, information about this boy-girl outfit has been sparse to say the least. Since their MySpace page appeared in Autumn 2009, Summer Camp have been the subject of much hot-tipping and general praise, all of which is well deserved. They stick staunchly to the story that they’re a Swedish group of undetermined number who met at summer camp one fine year, but holes in the validity of this assertion (including the distinctly grainy quality of their MySpace profile photos) led many to believe that they were dissembling.
The treasure hunt continues, with a smattering of voice clips from cult films and vocal distortion aplenty, Summer Camp are doing a phenomenal job of ensuring that the music’s the star, not the people making it. Highly regarded folk troubadour Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey of Platform magazine are in fact the components of this new musical phenomenon, not the awkward girls and boys pictured at all.
Summer Camp’s first single will be out on Moshi Moshi in March, after which they’ll cross the Atlantic to play the legendary SXSW festival. Until then they’re offering a free download of ‘Was It Worth It’ here. It’s an exaltantly emotive duet with a stomptastic beat and a mongrel amalgam of melodies that make for a truly original experience.
Enjoy, and keep your eyes peeled for much, much more.
Words: Helen True