2012 preview: the history of apple pie

here's a short piece i wrote for the skinny's january edition, as part of a feature previewing bands and albums we (as in, the music team as a whole) were looking forward to in 2012. i settled on the history of apple pie; other writers tipped the likes of grimes, laurel halo, and (slightly cheating ifyouaskme, since everyone knows they already kick large amounts of ass) future of the left. Click here to read the full feature over on the skinny's website.

The History of Apple Pie apparently selected their awkward moniker for its easily-Googleable qualities. So we went ahead and looked them up, and it turns out they’ve been around since 1381 – though back then they were known as ‘Tartys in Applis’. Butseriouslyfolks, such pastry-related webpages are growing increasingly outnumbered by those extolling the virtues of these London slacker-rock nostalgists.

Released in May 2011, debut single You’re So Cool modestly announced their sound’s twin illuminations – Stephanie Min’s breathy vocals and Jerome Watson’s fuzz-saturated guitar lines – while B-side Some Kind dialled up the distortion to add depth to their appeal. The DayGlo food-fight video for second single Mallory gave that appeal a fitting visual metaphor: as converse and denim get splattered in cake and jelly, their messy but sweet charms revealed their full potential.

The divisive Yuck have already come out as fans, which is fitting when you consider how neatly the two bands’ influences dovetail: to Dinosaur Jr, Malkmus and the rest, THoAP fold in shoegaze (check out Before You Reach the End’s feedback bedrock) and noise-pop (early Primitives to give a period reference; Asobi Seksu a contemporary one), to delicious effect. When their debut album arrives, they’ll leave deserts for dust in the Google rankings.