One of the joys of having been writing about music for so long is that I often hear from bands asking if I would mind listening to their music, so I get to hear a lot of material that otherwise would have passed me by, and Lego Lepricons are a case in point. I haven’t heard much progressive music from Israel (although I so have some), and although this EP was released in 2012 it only came to my attention when the band contacted me towards the end of last year. So, I downloaded it and put it into my review list, and a few months later finally got around to listening to it. To say that I was blown away was something of an understatement, so I did some more digging to discover where one earth this band had come from.
They describe themselves as post rock/space rock (they are much more the former and progressive than space), and were formed in 2011 by singer and musician Yair Ziv, keyboard player Shlomi Maya with their manager Leo Yaish. Shlomi Maya has played with many of the most influential Israeli musicians and singers (Hemi Rudner, Yirmi Kaplan, Shiri Maimon and many more), and is currently working with Haim Zinovich who produced and composed music to the many well-known TV series such as ‘The Sopranos’, ‘Sex and The City’, ‘ER’ etc. Yair Ziv’s career was formally launched in 2004 with the release of the single “Boee (come to me)” which went on to become one of the most popular songs in Israeli music history. So, both these guys have a real pedigree within their own country, but have now turned their attention to creating something a bit different, with all lyrics in English, that owes a great deal to Radiohead, Muse and Elbow.
This is dynamic sweeping music, with a singer who knows that he is good, really good. This means that there is a confidence throughout everything that they are doing and the reason that this sounds like a seasoned band as opposed to a debut is that all those involved have been around for so long. The line-up for this EP was Yair Ziv (vocals, guitars), Roy Messiah (drums), Nitzan Berger (guitar and percussion), Shlomi Maya (piano, keyboard and programming) while they brought in guest Yonatan Levital to provide the bass. My only hope is that given that it is so long since they released this EP is that they will soon have a full album to share with us! Powerful, dreamy, full of space and great emotion, this is a wonderful collection of songs that needs to be listened to by a far wider audience. Stream then buy this at http://legolepricons.bandcamp.com
