There has been so much live-streamed music recently that it’s easy to forget that bands were doing clever things on the internet even before all this.
In the autumn of 2017, Irish guitar quartet The Academic performed their song Bear Claws on Facebook Live. By projecting the show from their laptop onto a giant screen behind them, they were able to take advantage of the delay of a few seconds between singing and streaming to loop the song’s elements and build it using the website itself.
It’s hard to explain, but well worth watching, as 2.7 million people have on YouTube so far – double the number that have watched the video for the original song.
Having established themselves thoroughly in their homeland – number one debut album in 2018, a slot supporting The Rolling Stones and an outdoor headline show for 4,000 in Dublin last summer – they’re now gearing up to show the rest of us why their sharp, instantly whistleable indie pop has such hit potential. Last week’s new single, Anything Could Happen, was produced by former Kaiser Chiefs man Nick Hodgson and is as catchy as anything by his old band.
Naturally, there’s a quarantine-filmed video to go with it.
Watch The Academic on YouTube:
Listen on Spotify:
Listen on Soundcloud:
