Lato

Listening to Lato I find myself considering skyscapes. They share the comforting catharsis bands like Air offer with songs floating like clouds shifting somewhere between sunrise and sunset. Tracks like Deep Blue Air and Saturday lace sweet gentle vocals onto haunted chill-out haze much as the sun creep rounds a towering Cumuli Nimbus. The nostalgic lyrics catch something between the melancholic and the beautiful. These loving guys sing of the stages of love touched by starlight, eclipsed by brightness, dappled in shadow. Tracks like Crib and Tear in My Heart are darker midnight sounds. Expressing a storm of emotions, guitars let loose and a drum set rips out from the extremities. Lato’s style draws widely from the classical singer-songwriter legacy. Paul Simon and Coldplay come to mind offset by a homespun sound that is live rather than over-produced homogeny.

If you like Coldplay, Air, Portishead and U2 you’ll like them.

Meriel Goss - INIET London

byAnnaGiokas

ALEX Lato's latest song is inspired
by a walk around ancient ruins
in Greece.
It may not sound very rock
'n' roll, but Alex's chilled out
image and mellow songs have
catapulted him towards the top
of a worldwide talent contest on
the web.
The 26-year-old from Addiscombe
has entered a competition called the
Rock Star Lottery (RSL), which aims
to find a star previously outside the
music industry.
So far 900 acts have entered from
all over the world and Alex is hover-
ing between fourth and fifth posi-
tion.
Last week The Advertiser featured
teenage pop sensation Nlkki, who is
hoping that his Live Web TV show
will help launch his music career.
The 17 -year-old pop singer has
spent nearly £20,000 on choreogra-
phers, recording studios and PR
gurus to help him with his website's
bid for fame.
But, Alex is taking a more tradi-
tional approach and instead of court-
ing the media he is dedicating hours
to practising his guitar work in his
back garden and perfecting his lyrics.
He is comfortable with his image
and is not about to squeeze himself
into leather
trousers to
impress anyone.
He said: "I'm
not that worried
about rock 'n'
roll. Let's face it,
I'm a public
school boy who
went to a good
university. I'm
never exactly
going to be The
Darkness."
The RSL
champions itself
as an antidote
to the "medioc-
rity" coming out
of the music
industry.
It is a website
artists from all
over the world are invited to enter
their songs.
Then, as in TV talent show The X
Factor, the public are asked to vote
for their favourites.
A block of five votes costs £1 and
the company aims to raise £1.5mi1-
lion to launch the career of the artist
or band with the most votes.
Once a winner emerges, voters will
be entered into a "lottery" to win 50
per cent of the winning artist's profits.
Alex gigs in London and one of his
songs made it onto a CD on the front
of magazine Music Week.
And despite graduating from
Oxford University, he sacrificed the
chance of a glittering career for his
music and he is still waiting for his
big break.
And he is not giving up. He said: "I
believe good music will always do
well. The RSL could work and if it
does I believe I have a good chance of
winning."
- Croydon Advertiser

An unsigned band is taking an international talent competition by storm. Lato, a five piece band who practice in Hackney, are currently second in an internet based competition, The Rock Star Lottery, which promises a prize of a 1.5 million pound record deal. Drummer Jake Blair, who live in Mount Pleasant Lane, Upper Clapton, where the band also rehearses, says they could be jetting off on a world tour if they stay in the top three. "It would be amazing" said Jake, 27, who grew up in Hackney and works as a teacher. The band have been together for only a few months and have worked on several music projects before. Now they hope to hit the big time after beating off competition from more than 250 rivals from around the world to receive more than 45,000 votes.
For Jake, the choice between the band and his teaching career is no contest. "We don't know how long it would last, but I'm sure that if I got the chance to become a rock star its something I wouldn't want to miss," he said.
Lato will find out in December if they are one of the bands in the top three who will go on a six week world tour, after which voting will take place for the winner. - Hackney Gazette