Electra
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Electra

Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel | INDIE

Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel | INDIE
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"These guys fuse rockabilly, punk, and Brit pop, reminding us of the Arctic Monkeys or the Fratellis, in the best possible way"

Meat and potatoes rock fans -- who like their guitars big and crunchy -- should check out Electra. Hailing from Tel Aviv, these guys fuse rockabilly, punk, and Brit pop, reminding us of the Arctic Monkeys or the Fratellis, in the best possible way. - LA Weekly Blog


""The positively hyper-maniacal trio Electra, All bony elbows and jagged guitars..""

"The positively hyper-maniacal trio Electra, All bony elbows and jagged guitars, these lads specialize in the sort of breakneck three chord rave ups that fall no more than a skinny tie’s length from bands like The Jam or The Buzzcocks..." - My Old Kentucky blog


""The smiling faces of the audience reveal that they are loved, adored""

“The thing is that what they do, they do with real love for Rock N’ Roll. You can feel it throughout the show and the smiling faces of the audience reveal that they are loved, adored. These kinds of sounds and melodies are the fun in the shows and Electra’s show is just that” (Michael Rodberger, City Mouse magazine)
- City Mouse magazine


""Its their time to concure Israel, then the world""

"Its their time to concure Israel, then the world..." - Israel Today


""One of the most interesting pop-rock groups in the world this year""

"One of the most interesting pop-rock groups in the world this year" - NRG website


""A massive rocknroll act, Electra are not the next big thing but the current big thing""

"A massive rocknroll act, Electra are not the next big thing but the current big thing..." - 7nights, Yedioth Aharonot


""The Best New Band In Israel""

"The best new band in Israel" (Time Out Tel Aviv)

"A massive rocknroll act, Electra are not the next big thing but the current big thing" (7nights, Yedioth Aharonot)

"Its their time to concur Israel, then the world" (Yoav Kutner, Israel Today)

"One of the best albums to come out of Israel" (106FM, Tel Aviv student's radio's website)

"The hottest band around today" (Leon Fedman, Ma'ariv daily)

The next big thing // Local rock group Electra is ready to light up the world (Jerusalm post review) Writing a perfect summer pop song is not as easy as Nitzan Horesh makes it look. “Coming To Get You,” the insanely catchy ska-driven rocker by his band Electra that has permeated local airwaves in recent months, would sound great with the car top down, cruising down the highway to the beach. A great song is undeniable, but was “Coming To Get You” a fluke aligning of the stars or is there a band of substance behind it? A quick listen to Electra’s debut English-language full-length album, Heartbreaks for Fools, immediately confirms that the single was only the tip of a huge iceberg of musical talent that Horesh and his bandmates possess and are ready to unleash on an unsuspecting public. Imagine taking the innocent, spunky British Invasion rock of the fiction One-ders from the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do and spiking it with Buzzcocks/Jam-era punk, the new wave pop stylings of The Cars, healthy slices of sped-up reggae, rockabilly and an allegiance to the power of concise songs and arrangements as exemplified by the masters at Motown, and you begin to enter the netherworld of Electra. The band’s ability to mine the past while still sounding utterly contemporary, combined with the fact that they sound like virtually nobody else on the local horizon, has prompted some to proclaim the band as the next big thing. Yediot Aharonot pretty much called Heartbreaks for Fools the best album of the year in a recent sterling review and urged readers to run out and buy the album. (Jeusalem Post)

“The thing is that what they do; they do with real love for Rock N’ Roll. You can feel it throughout the show and the smiling faces of the audience reveal that they are loved, adored. These kinds of sounds and melodies are the fun in the shows and Elctra’s show is just that” (Michael Rodberger, city mouse magazine)

“I wish all Israeli music would sound like this, there are almost no ensembles that make this kind of music that is so different from the mainstream atmosphere, not even from the indie and alternative scene.“ (Itamar Hendelman, Hair Tel Aviv)

"A wake up call for Israeli music.This album gives us optimism that this time round there's a real chance for rocknroll made in this land" (Alex Polonsky, Nana 10 site)

"One of the most interesting pop-rock groups in the world this year (NRG website)

"Electra got the best frontman we've seen around here in around 20 years (Asaf nevo, Mako website)

"Pure star quality on stage, and their album is one of the best and most important albums to come out of Israel, just perfect! (Music Post website)

"The excellence in playing, the perfection in orchestrating are clear from the first hearing of the album. One great pleasure (Avishai Matia, Globes magazine)

"One of the strongest and most surpring musical act that grew in Israel in recent years. Their live gig is wild in the very original sense of the term, but their vocal harmonies are striking each and every time. They do mean bussines, no doubt about it, but their vibe is full of fun. That’s the magic of this band. When people came out of the venue you could notice an Intense pulsed light from their eyes (Playlist website) - Time Out Tel Aviv


""Pure star quality on stage, and their album is one of the best and most important albums to come out of Israel, just perfect!""

"Pure star quality on stage, and their album is one of the best and most important albums to come out of Israel, just perfect!" - Music Post website


""Electra got the best frontman we've seen around here in about 20 years...""

"Big sexy balls of fire..." - Mako website


""When people came out of the venue you could notice an Intense pulsed light from their eyes...""

"One of the strongest and most surpring musical act that grew in Israel in recent years. Their live gig is wild in the very original sense of the term, but their vocal harmonies are striking each and every time. They do mean bussiness, no doubt about it, but their vibe is full of fun. That’s the magic of this band. When people came out of the venue you could notice an Intense pulsed light from their eyes..." - Playlist website


""Tel Aviv rock trio fresh off the presses. Cool new band in it’s sonic infancy""

"Promising Tel Aviv rock trio fresh off the presses. Cool new band in it’s sonic infancy" - Paste Magazine


""go and put Electra on your bands-to-check-out list. And make sure to put them at the top""

"go and put Electra on your bands-to-check-out list. And make sure to put them at the top..." - Someday Soon


""The Next Big Thing - Local rock band Electra gets ready to light up the world""

Writing a perfect summer pop song is not as easy as Nitzan Horesh makes it look. “Coming To Get You,” the insanely catchy ska-driven rocker by his band Electra that has permeated local airwaves in recent months, would sound great with the car top down, cruising down the highway to the beach or, since after all we are in Israel, in a fourth-floor walk-up with only a lemon Arctic with which to cool down.

A great song is undeniable, but was “Coming To Get You” a fluke aligning of the stars or is there a band of substance behind it? A quick listen to Electra’s debut English-language full-length album, Heartbreaks for Fools, immediately confirms that the single was only the tip of a huge iceberg of musical talent that the 33- year-old Horesh and his bandmates possess and are ready to unleash on an unsuspecting public.

Imagine taking the innocent, spunky British Invasion rock of the fiction One-ders from the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do and spiking it with Buzzcocks/Jam-era punk, the new wave pop stylings of The Cars, healthy slices of sped-up reggae, rockabilly and an allegiance to the power of concise songs and arrangements as exemplified by the masters at Motown, and you begin to enter the netherworld of Electra.

The band’s ability to mine the past while still sounding utterly contemporary, combined with the fact that they sound like virtually nobody else on the local horizon, has prompted some to proclaim the band as the next big thing. Yediot Aharonot pretty much called Heartbreaks for Fools the best album of the year in a recent sterling review and urged readers to run out and buy the album. Not bad for a band that until two years ago was, for all intents and purposes, defunct.

According to Horesh, following a two-year period of activity that saw the band release an EP called Come Inside in 2004, tour the UK and Germany and sign a deal with EMI Publishing, he decided to put Electra on hold and move to England. Horesh was reluctant to talk about the two years he spent abroad, aside from saying, “I decided it was good to be there as a musician. It was very comfortable to be there, and there was great music.”

What prompted him to return to Israel in 2008 was a phone call from the band’s bass player, Doron Farhi.

“He said to me, ‘I found the ultimate drummer for Electra; you have to come back.’ So I did,” said Horesh. Farhi was referring to Boaz Wolf, who recalled his introduction to the band.

“I met up with Doron, and one night we jammed together. He said, ‘I have this band, and we’re not doing anything right now. I’m going to call Nitzan and tell him to come back to Israel.’”

THE RECHARGED trio discovered a powerful chemistry, fueled by Horesh’s love of 1950s and ’60s singles, Wolf’s penchant for the 1970s punk staples and Farhi’s 1980s fixation, and their ability to synthesize those influences into a vibrant, charisma-filled sound they could call their own.

After spending a year wood-shedding and slowly building a following for their adrenaline-filled live shows, Electra signed on to alternative music label Anova Records and went into the studio with producer Baruch Ben-Yitzhak of the similarly Anglo-rock influenced Rockfour.

“We’re really a live band, but at some point we said, ‘Hey, maybe we should make a record like it’s supposed to be made,’” said Horesh.

According to Wolf, the studio experience contributed to an expansion of the band’s tight three-piece sound.

“We have a distinct live sound, and originally we tried to capture that on the album. Although we ended up using instruments that we don’t use in our live shows – brass, keyboards – it pretty much preserved that live feel. It’s funny, now that we have the album, we’re trying to recreate that sound in our lives shows,” said Wolf, adding, “We’re very happy with the final results. It sounds great – beyond all our expectations.”

That’s the result for the listener as well, with each track brimming with guitar hooks, vocal harmonies, bright melodies and energy to spare. When pressed to explain how an Israeli kid could grow up to write such decidedly Anglo-oriented material, Horesh chalked it up to countless hours listening to everything from American garage rock and Motown to classic British rockers like The Rolling Stones. He admitted to appropriating what he liked from everything he heard – the American songwriting style and the tougher British attitude.

“I don’t hear a specific British influence in our music; I think it’s more American. But English artists tend to be more ironic and punchy, which I liked. So it’s not so much a musical influence as an attitude that we’ve borrowed,” he said.

According to Horesh, the decision to write and perform in English wasn’t something the band decided – it was decided for them.

“The music we make demands that we sing in English,” he said, ironically asking that the interview be held in Hebrew. “It wouldn’t sound right in Hebrew. It was clear to us, like it’s clea - The Jerusalem Post


Discography

Heartbreaks For Fools 2010 (Anova Records)
Songs They Taught Electra EP 2011 (Anova Records)

Photos

Bio

Hailed as the unlikely new middle east must-watch rock’n'roll act (“The best new band in Israel”, Time Out Tel Aviv), Electra is definitely following the Kasbah Rock tradition combining the raw live energy of the likes of The Clash with an activist agenda, a reflection of this troubled part of the world in which they live. This band is about passion, anger and fun, mixed together and poured into jagged guitar pop tunes that varies from ’50s rockabilly to ’60s harmonies, and on to snotty punk and far beyond, with a current and vibrant edge.

Electra injects adrenalin and charisma to the veins of the growing music scene in the happening city of Tel Aviv and now they are “Coming to Get You!”, as their massive hit single declares.

This trio is known in their home country as the busiest band on the road, where they have earned a strong and devoted following. The band’s album, Heartbreaks for Fools, was released in July 2010 on Anova Records to a buzz of media attention, and received great praise from music critics (“A huge band. Not the next big thing but the current one”, Yedioth Achronoth, Israel’s largest daily).

It’s the song craft, the unique combination of influences, bawdy, rollicking melodies and stylish appeal that made Electra reach top positions in the major radio charts – that used to be dominated by mellow mainstream acts – with the three singles the band have put out this year. In March 2011 they released Songs They Taught Electra EP that contains 6 cover versions to the band’s range of influences, from Desmond Dekker’s “The Israelites” to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”.

Electra were invited to open up for The Fall and Art Brut in early 2011, headed to the SXSW Festival where they got raving reviews (“Paste magazine top 50 bands in SXSW 2011”), and then went on the play some successful shows in New York City (“hyper-maniacal trio, All bony elbows and jagged guitars”, My Old Kentucky Blog).

Last October they returned to the U.S for a cross country tour which included acclaimed performances at the Culture Collide festival in L.A & CMJ in NY ("these guys fuse rockabilly, punk, and Brit pop, reminding us of the Arctic Monkeys or the Fratellis, in the best possible way", LA Weekly).

The band are currently working on their US tour for Spring 2012 and their European tour for Summer 2012.