SPOTLIGHT: Mew

Mew formed in seventh grade at elementary school during a group artistic project. They chose to make a film about man's destruction of mother earth. They made the film and composed the background music. That is how it all began...

At their very first gig an agent for a book publishing company caught them and was so impressed he convinced his company to completely change their business plan to record and release the debut Mew album, 'A Triumph For Man' (1997). Limited to 2000 copies it's now a highly-valued rarity and was a critical hit in Denmark.

By the time second album 'Half The World Is Watching Me' was ready for its release in 2000, Mew's relationship with their parent company was fraying at the edges, so the band created their own label, Evil Office, to release it. No sooner did it get an initial limited release in Sweden, however, than they were snapped up by Sony for a world-wide deal and decided to pull the new record and re-record the best of their catalogue for an international audience. The result was 'Frengers', a tenfold leap in sales figures and suddenly Mew found themselves thrust into the 'big time' of one-bedroom London squat-holes and lengthy Transit van tours of the M6. It was whilst on their tour of the UK that the apocalyptic art boys wrote and recorded their 4th album. Their fourth record 'And the Glass Handed Kites' is an even greater leap into the unknown. Redefining the concept of an 'album' - and, indeed, of a 'concept album' - And the Glass Handed Kites is an eccentric 60 minute rock headfuck, flinging musical ideas, distorted nightmare images and heartbreak choruses at the listener with what at first seems to be a random ferocity.

The best band to have come out of Denmark in recent years - Mew - should be the effervescene of everybody's life. Get into them now!!

N.B. Mew have toured with the likes of Robbie Williams, Sigur Rós, Manic Street Preachers, Kashmir, Cooper Temple Clause, R.E.M. and Elbow. They also received the 2003 Danish Music Critics "Album of the Year" and "Band of the Year" awards.