JamesP93Sometimes you find a diamond in the rough; this is how I feel about finding the pop/folk/indie/reggae/electronic (hard to put in a single genre) duo from Germany named Milky Chance, consisting of vocals and guitar from Clemens Rehbein with the other instrumentals produced by Phillipp Dausch, both originating from Kassel, Germany. I was perusing the Top 40 to find a song that I had heard on the radio when I just happened to click on a track entitled “Stolen Dance”. I immediately switched to YouTube to listen to the full song and, subsequently, every other Milky Chance song that I could find. This led me to the iTunes store to purchase their debut album called “Sadnecessary”; and I’m glad I did. The duo began their musical lives in a jazz quartet called Flown Tones in which Clemens was the bass player and Phillipp played guitar, the two then began releasing material online and began self-producing an album, the same album that I downloaded from iTunes a few days ago.
Stolen Dance, the song that has attracted the most attention, so far peaking at number 24 in the Official UK Music Charts, is an instantly ‘bop-and-sing-along’ song with deep lyrical content mixed with an upbeat guitar background that really showcases Clemens trademark vocals, however, it would be unfair of me to pick out any songs in particular as in my opinion they are all incredible with each offering something different. I couldn’t personally compare them to any other band around although Clemens has been called “2014’s Bob Marly”, and while I do think that that is a bold and somewhat incorrect statement to make, you can maybe hear a certain reggae influence in some tracks.
All in all, I think the debut album of Milky Chance is an excellent start to their career and I will be waiting (im)patiently for the follow-up album that is sure to come in the hopefully not too distant future.