I’m already totally unnerved by Zoo Kid after about 30 seconds of his video. A shocking ginger Morrissey quiff and a guy who can’t be much older than Dylan Haskins (Boom! In fact he’s about 5 years younger) and looking like a ragamuffin extra from This Is England ’86 suddenly starts singing after I’d figured he was an actor. But its not, its Archy Marshall working under pseudonym of Zoo Kid, a voice with shades of a squirming, uneasy version of Joe Strummer and over slap-back electric guitar hinting at a rockabilly past.
Its always hard to tell just how authentically lo-fi some new music is since cassette-quality recording has come so heavily back into vogue, but part of me hopes that there’s nothing that contrived about Marshall’s tunes and production because he sounds so delightfully unhinged and potentially violent, like someone who could spark off in a few directions rather than getting hewn into some NME scene based on the reverb on his guitar (er, bluewave?). Turns out he went to the Brit School though, which is probably why I thought he was an actor and for some reason disappointing. Less potential psychopath, more stage school kid. Still, this is charming stuff. Watch this space.
