The Rakes have announced details of a suprise gig this Friday 5th October in London.

The band will play the launch of new clubnight Twisted Licks, which is taking place at the 229 in Great Portland Street.

The Bishops and Assembly Now will also play, while the second room will be curated by Man Like Me.

“Big doesn’t always mean better” my mum told me many moons ago, and indeed an ex-girlfriend also commented on much the same. However, in the case of Swedish exports I’m From Barcelona, big does mean better. The 29 piece jangly pop symphony offer a lesson in writing simple, slightly crazy tunes that sound, well, amazing.

Sounding like The Polyphonic Spree if they were Swedish, this collective manage to combine all the excitement and pure jubilation that the ‘spree have in their records with some quality indie-pop tunes that cross over between cult and pop by being extremely accessible.

Debut album “Let Me Introduce My Friends” opens with four would-be singles and received rave reviews from The Music Slut and Pitchfork, but possibly their greatest song is the marvellous off-album track and live favourite “Britney”. Featuring the (simply genius) lyric of: ‘Why do we care if good ol’ Britney wants to shave her hair?/They don’t know a thing about you/Girl I wanna look like you’, it looks set to be one song to transport them onto bigger things.

The album is full of energetic, memorable hooks that’ll have you humming along all day, and whilst the ‘Spree’s tracks can go on for up to 10 minutes on CD (let alone their live shows); most of Barcelona’s tracks are 3 minute pop wonders.

Led by the energetic (and Gogol-Bordello reject looks) Emanuel Lundgren, the 29-piece struggles to fit on most of the smaller stages that they’ve been touring recently, however hopefully in time they’ll come to play larger venues as they become bigger.

After the jump: video of I’m From Barcelona’s ‘We’re From Barcelona’ (confusing, eh?). Photo is from Martin Deutsch’s flickr stream under the Creative commons license.
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