Despite hailing from two respectively fundamental musical cities separated by some 4,000 miles of both land and sea, Brighton’s Gaps are to my mind instantaneously evocative of Chicago’s Speck Mountain, with each as immediate as they are immediately wistful. The latter release third full-length Badwater this coming Monday, a record you categorically need to experience whether you yet know it or not, whilst the former have just this week uploaded their first three tracks to SoundCloud, the standout of which absolutely has to be deemed Belong. Beginning with a spectral vocal refrain sighed nostalgically over and over (“Where I go I will belong/ Where I go I will belong to you”, it goes), an affecting piano line and brushed cymbals that ripple like stones skimmed soon intervene to combine in one of the most splendiferous début recordings of recent times, or at least of those to have drizzled down from that streaming service aforesaid…
