Strangefruit

Taking a cue from Andy Warhol's famous screen tests, the video for Strangefruit's latest single "Ghosts" is an intimate, black-and-white film portrait of lead singer Jenny Maxwell. Against sweeping vocals and dark guitar riffs, Maxwell nods, twists, and blinks furiously. It's both mundane and strangely haunting to watch, which makes it right in line with how the band describes the single: "The song is an eerie flicker, a ghost, that lies somewhere between the dark and the night, unsettling and captivating at the same time." Backed by Peter and Jamie Perrett (of Love Minus Zero and Babyshambles), Strangefruit is a young band with a mature sound that—like Warhol's famous films—"draws you in and strips you off."


STRANGEFRUIT'S DEBUT EP, BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE SEA, IS OUT NOW. FOR MORE ON THE BAND, VISIT ITS WEBSITE OR SOUNDCLOUD - Interview Magazine

Jenny Maxwell of Strangefruit
Maxwell is the silky-voiced lead singer of the London-based band Strangefruit. Named after Billie Holiday's protest song of the same name, the band is influenced by both the iconic singer herself as well as classic folk and rock music. Maxwell's personal style is a mix of dark romance and mystery. You can check out Strangefuit's sound on their debut EP, Between The Earth And Sea, out now - Lucky Magazine

They started back in 2008; now three-piece folk and psychedelic rock outfit Strangefruit are finally getting the recognition they deserve and taking London by storm. They released a five-track EP Sea of Fog, recorded at Abbey Road studios, earlier in 2013 to rave reviews and are planning the follow-up album as we speak. The line-up consists of the beautiful Jenny Maxwell and the two Perrett brothers- Peter and Jamie- formerly of Babyshambles. And unlike what one would expect from Babyshambles, they actually turned up for their photo shoot at the 55factory studio. Mind you, bassist Peter did keep strangely disappearing for long periods of time. The others say they are seriously thinking of renaming the band ‘Waiting for Pete.’

They’re a pretty eclectic bunch with a sound that evokes a cross between Jefferson Airplane, PJ Harvey and Gogol Bordello. Asked about their influences, they give a smirk saying that they all come from very different places.

Jamie: “People often say that we remind them of Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and other different artists. Especially the vocals, sometimes Jenny hasn’t heard much of them, which I think is quite nice actually.”

These perceived comparisons without any direct influence on Maxwell are interesting. One wonders if there’s a natural similarity or that the influences are passed on through the other band members.

A fascinating collaboration of late is that Jenny’s outfits are being designed and dressed by super-exciting British designer Georgia Hardinge. Her gorgeous floating, bold print pieces reflect the ambiance of Strangefruit perfectly and the piece that she designed for their appearance at the Secret Garden Party festival this summer was stunning, using metres of flowing material.

Strangefruit are fast becoming renowned for their eclectic, dark videos, which fit their varied music extremely well. Their last video for the title track of the EP was especially dark. Filmed in an abandoned church in Peckham, a bald woman lies prostrated on a table top like a suckling pig, as obese, grotesque men around her force food into their gaping mouths. It’s an extremely disturbing and surreal experience, but this is what is beautiful about Strangefruit. Marvellously uncompromising with nothing taken for granted, I for one am extremely excited to hear what the next album has in store. - 55 Pages

The Buffalo Bar played host to the enchanting 4-piece band ‘Strangefruit’ last night… and to the homeless man who I’m told comes to every one of their gigs.
Proudly introducing the new addition to the group on drums, a beautifully slender and vintage-styled Jenny Maxwell stands barefoot on the small stage, hiding behind the wavy hair covering half her face. She may be the lead but before she starts singing she greets the crowd with an air of shyness that is as endearing as it is surprising- given the transformation she takes on when she gets lost in her music.
Supported by many friends and fans alike, the small venue was packed to the rafters with faces intent on enjoying every second of the group’s psychedelic rock repertoire. What with acquiring their new drummer, performing at a number of festivals over the summer and fixing more dates for the coming year, the group have gone from strength to strength and bestowed on the audience a set-list comprising a mixture of their self-written eerie melodies and some hauntingly beautiful covers of classics.
It’s evident from the talent of the band members that they are no newbies to the music scene. Brothers Jamie (guitar) and Pete (bass) recorded and toured with friend Pete Doherty as ‘Babyshambles’ before meeting Jenny. With Jamie and Jenny now an item, the pair share fleeting romantic glances at one another whilst performing lyrics ‘tell me you love me…’ in their catchy track ‘Tell me’.
The uber-talented front woman dips between singing, violin and piano, and is comparable to the similarly experimental soprano, Kate Bush, in whimsical creativity both in her visual performance and her singing. Jenny’s dark and melancholy undertone spices each song rather hauntingly, so when met with her effortless and powerful highs and emotional, smouldering lows she delivers in the realms of Florence Welch (I bet she never gets bored of that comparison).
As I watch, mesmerised by her performance, I can’t be sure whether to put it down to her odd interpretive hand movements, her cracking set of lungs or… her REALLY big mouth when she sings. Like, really quite massive.
Everything about them is the very best kind of unique and it stings of a soon-to-be cult following. Giving most of the crowd hugs after the set, they give the vibe that they’re really all about the music and appreciation. Me likey. - From the Cradle to the Stage

Five tracks. Five songs on your average EP, that's all you have to impress a listener with. A potential fan. An industry bigwig. Some twat in Camden that could do with longer trousers. How do you cram everything you have: months and months of hard work, lugging equipment from venue to venue, the sacrifices, driving home from shows in the middle of the night, singing til your voice creaks...into five songs?
London quartet Strangefruit have done a belting job of packing their everything into debut EP ‘Between The Earth and Sea’. Standing on the fence somewhere in-between gothic folk and Alanis Morisette's self-asserted indie-pop, the four-piece have launched into this stunning debut brimming with cinematic, diverse and haunting tracks that are akin to a mini movie soundtrack.
Opening track 'Tell Me' begins with delicate piano and a generic singer-songwriter tune before jumping into 80s riffs and 50s girl-group backing. It's all a bit David Lynch, a bit confusing. But so enigmatic. 'Falling' is self-produced slow number with gentle keys and weeping guitar solo teasing gently behind Jenny Maxwell's vocals. Strangefruit’s guitarist and vocalist Jamie Perrett and bassist Peter Perrett Jnr are the sons of Peter Perrett, singer of the iconic new wave band The Only Ones and were in the original line-up of Babyshambles. The brothers went on to form Love Minus Zero meeting singer and violinist Jenny Maxwell and starting Strangefuit.
'Ghosts' is a darker offering full of haunted house chords, trippy synths and ghostly vocals. Operatic expression comes in as the track develops: rhythmic, desperate, distorted. This is Strangefruit at their most powerful and captivating before heading back to the reassuring territory of 'Slowly Drift Away' - another ballad simple enough to showcase Jenny's epic, expressive vocals.
'Sea of Fog' is the final track of the EP, our number five. Tinged this time with Americana and a delicate beat, Strangefruit have gone all gothic Wild West before nodding east with deep violins and thrashing riffs, and finally morphing into something else. Imagine Lawrence of Arabia hanging out on horseback by the Rio Grande and you're about there. Strangefruit are indeed one of the most versatile bands around at the moment. See video for 'Sea of Fog' here: http://vimeo.com/48353356
The band already have a burgeoning reputation as a captivating live band, with the charismatic Jenny mesmerising the audience with her voice and beauty. They’ve already played with the likes of Florence and The Machine and Dizzee Rascal, and will perform at this year’s Secret Garden Party and Blissfields. - Never Enough Notes

Jenny Maxwell and her band of vagabonds lead us into a very strange dinner party in their music video.
A grotesque banquet, a fallen angel, a lead singer pitched somewhere between Kate Bush and PJ Harvey – and everything filmed on location at a ruined, bombed-out church in Peckham. It’s not every day that a new band creates a video with the production values of a high-concept Tim Walker shoot, but we guess that comes naturally to Strangefruit.
The London-based quartet emerged out of Love Minus Zero, with two of the group even doing time in the original Babyshambles line-up under Pete Doherty’s particularly, er, shambolic leadership. But that only seems to have convinced the members of Strangefruit to go hell for leather in their latest incarnation, which channels plangent folk and psych rock via an extra Lynch-ian episode of Twin Peaks. The Sea of Fog video being a case in point.
You can imagine Nick Cave howling at the moon with this lot. Laura Clarke directs and Matthew Oaten is on cinematography duties.
Strangefruit’s debut EP, Between The Earth and Sea, comes out on 1st July. The band are scheduled to appear at Blissfields on the 5th and Secret Garden Party on 27th July. - Wonderland Magazine

Beautiful indie-rock with a darker edge, the five songs here are haunting, theatrical, and powerful. Robust female vocals from Jenny Maxwell (who also holds down the violin) guide us through tender moments interspersed with distorted, moody bursts and an overall nostalgic feel. Though it begins with hopeful piano-driven melodica, by the end the tone is more atmospheric and pleading, before exiting on an orchestral section that is both pensive and eccentric. File this one under psyche/folk/ambient and oh so great. - Inforty

Strangefruit’s stunning debut EP ‘Between The Earth and Sea’ is out now…It’s the perfect soundtrack to a David Lynch film.
The band’s wonderful front woman, violinist and pianist Jenny Maxwell, is being recognised as a new fashion icon and her incredible and her powerful voice is emotive and spine tinglingly.
The band was named after the protest song that exposed American racism, sang most famously by musical heroine Billie Holiday, this London four-piece make darkly cinematic psych folk.
Jenny spent years singing in churches and choirs , her voice is impassioned and powerful with an incredible range.
She’s convinced there’s no safe route to success anymore, no set way to do things. Strangefruit know you have to take control of what you do and how you do it.
She says: “It’s really important to make your music an experience in itself. Build your own artistic community around yourself. Create your own world – that’s part of the thrill. Be headstrong. Believe in your music. Stick at it.”
facebook.com/strangefruituk
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strangefruituk.com - Fame Magazine

Here is more evidence of the resurgence of the London indie music scene as a new musical force: Strangefruit. This trio consists of singer-violinist Jenny Maxwell and the Parrett brothers, Jamie and Peter, on guitar and bass, respectively. With a host of musical references that include the likes of Patti Smith, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Billie Holiday, Arcade Fire, The Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, there is enough strength and distinction in the songwriting on this five-track EP to suggest that Strangefruit has the creative stamina to make a proper impact. The song Tell Me is an emotional pop ballad which showcases Maxwell’s impassioned vocals, Falling is a melancholy ’60s-styled gem, Ghosts is expectedly dark and sinister, Slowly Drift Away is sweet and fragile, while final track, Sea Of Fog is strikingly evocative. A superb debut. - Today Online (Singapore)

Something was lost in the early 2000s when women like Alanis Morissette, Paula Cole, and Tori Amos were putting out more rockin’ folk music that was both pop-melodic and lyrically stimulating. Strangefruit may be less MTV than any of these predecessors were, but they’re no less capable of producing such calculated music.
For this EP, Jenny Maxwell and Jamie and Peter Perrett, along with a few other musicians to round out the sound, dip into the serene, beautiful scope of ballad-heavy songs that match weirdness with prettiness.
“Tell Me” could easily be a number one hit. It streams in on delicate piano (dreaming up the Tori Amos reference) and Jenny singing quietly. My goodness, what a voice! It’s not ferocious, tense, or affected. Instead, it’s an emotive, clear sugar. The instrumentation, in fact, is quite good, but it’s nothing another likeminded band couldn’t pull off. Leave it to Jenny to take the piano-driven, sparse electric music and to the next level. “Tell me all the time,” she sings with growing concern, “that your love’s as strong as mine.”
Strangefruit is out to be catchy and off-putting. These songs sound familiar, but also just damn good. “Falling” lingers on a carnival-type, two-chord organ riff. “Pull me back to a place I’ve left behind,” Jenny sings as electric guitar scuffles the band into the chorus. Male backing vocals add to the sound as Jenny cries, “Wake up just to find/ we’re falling back into the night.” Eerie.
“Ghosts” sounds like its name. The guitar ripples and the bass is more like a heartbeat, with Jenny fading into shadows. “Slowly Drift Away” is gorgeously mellow. It’s like the song is emerging from a fog rolling across London bridges. “I’ll never love again,” Jenny offers. “Won’t you hold me?/ I cannot be on my own.”
On the finale, “Sea of Fog”, Strangefruit returns to their energetic rock roots. The bass almost gets playful. Cowboy-style guitar pulls one way and Jenny pulls the other, busting out a violin part that matches the electric guitar’s intensity.
As an EP, Between The Earth and The Sea is stimulating. You wonder, however, how Strangefruit might do with a longer career. Will this sound and songwriting sustain, or, like many of similar genre, will they start to plagiarize themselves?
I hope not. Strangefruit’s album is very good, very sensual and lustful; very macabre. I hope they aren’t afraid to push themselves. They deserve to make a name for themselves.
Bottom line: It’s hard to distill what makes this EP good, but the dark rock instrumentation and a female vocalist that shows no fear is a good place to start. - Angelica Music

Strangefruit, a new British band invited to kick off a year-long collaboration between Avid and Abbey Road Studios, last month released a critically acclaimed debut EP Between the Earth and Sea including the track recorded and mixed at the legendary studio in late December.

Avid and Abbey Road teamed Strangefruit, dubbed “A Band With A Dream,” with Grammy-nominated producer Greg Wells. Not only did the producer and band record in the same Studio 2 that was home to all the Beatles sessions, they mixed in Studio 3, where Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was mixed.
It wasn’t all retro though, as the project made full use of Avid’s latest HDX system with HD-series I/O toolset. Strangefruit already was using Pro Tools at the band’s home studio recording all its rehearsals straight to multitracks, portions of which were utilized in the three days of Abbey Road sessions.

“We lifted the tempo map into the Abbey Road session, which helped massively when tracking, as there were no surprises,” explains Strangefruit guitarist/co-songwriter Jamie Perrett, whose dad Peter Perrett was leader of early 1980s, fondly remembered New Wave band, The Only Ones (“Another Girl, Another Planet”).

“Abbey Road has a magical aura to it and the equipment still sounds incredible. A lot of credit has to go to the technicians. It’s a playground for musicians and producers,” Jamie Perrett adds.

Strangefruit’s home studio is also where other recording history was made, such as Elvis Costelllo’s My Aim Is True and Dire Straits’ initial hit “Sultans of Swing.” Perrett’s brother, Peter Jr., plays bass in Strangefruit, whose management is presently talking with the majors for a deal.

Wells talked with Pro Sound News about working with Strangefruit using the same actual microphones and upright piano, colloquially known in the studio as “Mrs. Mills,” heard on “Lady Madonna.”

PSN: How do you approach working with a new artist in the studio?
GW: Establishing trust is important from minute one. The studio is such a fragile environment and nothing makes someone more self-conscious than wearing headphones, where you hear every tiny noise your mouth makes. It’s all about helping them achieve something that none of us could get done on our own... - ProSound News

Instantly, on hitting play, the observer is lifted on a blanket of sounds and from being part of the audience, becomes part of the experience. A melting-pot of melliferous mellifluent mellow music wraps the listener in a gauze from which there is no desire to escape as Strangefruit take over the thought processes.
There is much to highlight in the experience of spending time with the quartet, of most significance is the consummate ease with which they mix together global influences and styles to generate an atmosphere in to which there is a natural grace to the output. Without wishing to play-down other parts of the band, the crowning glory is with no doubt the mesmeric vocal, which works due to the abilities of the songwriters to wrest the best out of the vocal / instrumental combinations to provide for material of the highest order.
A recent release – the debut EP - Between The Earth and Sea should see the outfit gaining higher visibility, though I have a feeling more will be made of the who they sound like and where the music would fit rather than acknowledging Strangefruit is a superb band in their own right.
Between the Earth and Sea – EP – Strangefruit is available on iTunes* - Emerging Indie Bands The Best New Bands from Around The World

Strangefruit is one of those bands that has escaped time, an entity of exotic existentialism – a disorienting display of musicality whose existence precedes essence, where the song is everything, and any attempt to define its sound within the context of genres is meaningless.
Sea Of Fog seems to be an exploration of music as art, a sprawling, self-aware piece that is beautifully constructed around the voice and violin of Jenny Maxwell, but exists and truly comes alive under the direction of Peter and Jamie Perrett, sons of Peter Perrett, frontman of the iconic band The Only Ones.
There’s a wonderful dislocated sense to Sea Of Fog, which seems inspired as much by Siouxsie and the Banshees as by Jefferson Airplane, which essentially means almost nothing, since the song – accented by a strange video that glorifies gluttony and guardian angels, or it would seem – has its own hypnotic charm.
Sea Of Fog comes from the London quartet’s Between The Earth And Sea EP, which was released July 1, 2013. - The Unpage

Next up were every music fan's wet dream – Strangefruit. Utterly genre defying, their sound oscillated between ska, blues, folk, rock, and pop – the list could go on. This makes them impossible to shoehorn into a single category, resulting in a broad appeal.

The performers themselves were captivating in their brilliance – not one bum note or a moment out of time, which was impressive given the complexities of the sound emanating from the stage.

The atmosphere was pretty bombastic for the entire set, the crowd doe-eyed and mesmerised by the charismatic lead vocalist Jenny Maxwell. Incidentally, the line-up also boasts two former members of Babyshambles, Peter Perrett Jnr and Jamie Perrett, perhaps in part explaining their natural (habitual?) stage presence. They provided the ultimate holy trinity in live music – talent, creativity and showmanship.

There are no bad words that can be connected with this band, or their performance. If they don't go stellar in the next few years (hopefully months) then there is something very wrong with the music industry - Live Music Scene UK