Spite seldom sounds so sweet as it does on Don't Read the Classics: "how I wish you could have been a fucking man". Owl & Mouse's Hannah Botting came to London from Australia in 2008. She bought a cheap ukulele and taught herself to play by learning Magnetic Fields songs.
These quietly energetic and stylish songs remind me of Alan Horne's description of Subway Sect, that the idea is to "work not with power, but with weakness and introversion".
Sure, no one who went to the Download festival is going to embrace this spare and haunting ep, but anyone who a few years ago dismissed Owl & Mouse as somehow too lightweight will be converted. Because Somewhere To Go is a very substantial and richly rewarding record.
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