Foxes aren't flavour of the month in the UK after some unfortunate incidents with urban foxes attacking babies. The music of Foxes In Fiction, the musical vehicle for the hyper talented Warren Hildebrand, is more likely to lull the young of the human species to sleep than to give them nightmare. Warren has released an album of lo-fi fuzzed up ambiance called ‘Swung From The Branches’, which has a calm almost spiritual beauty. It's like listening to Boards Of Canada through cheap mass produced earphones. There's no need to hunt these foxes though because Warren has made the Foxes In Fiction album available free from his blogsite.
Polynya (an area of open water surrounded by sea ice) sound like they're auditioning to be the 4AD house band. Orlando, with it's isolated, whispering vocals, guitars ringing with reverb, the basslines wriggling along underneath the song sounds like it's been created from a 4AD flat pack. It's not all epic shoegazing, it's not all updated Cocteau Twins and Lush for the 21st century. No there's more to Polynya than mere 4AD mimickery.
Taking their cue from the source of their band name for Polynya shoegazing is merely the solid sea ice surrounding a more fluid sound. A sound that grabs fragments of their favourite bands, Wire, Can, Boards of Canada, Augustus Pablo and Pere Ubuand moulds them into something new. People in Pictures sounds like The Cranberries being regularly interrupted by My Bloody Valentine. The Devil's favourite track Tarantula is a psych pop echo from the summer of love.
