Candidate
It took a while for Candidate’s music to reach France, but the indomitable Gauls got it just about spot on.
The first bulletins back from over the English Channel didn’t just list the influences. They didn’t wonder whether the Americana and slowcore elements were more important than the 70s singer songwriter borrowings. They didn’t puzzle over why all this emotionally overstretched folk music was filled with toy whistles and inappropriate junkshop synthesizers.
No. They just pointed out that Candidate make music that keeps you company round a campfire on a dark night. Music that reminds you that, despite that rustling in the bushes and the beady yellow pinpricks of light in the undergrowth and the fact that your boyfriend’s been a fuck of a long time coming back with that torch from the car, it’s probably all going to be fine
Candidate have made three albums and a clutch of EPs. These have all been loved and lauded by the same sort of sensible people who, in bygone ages, understood how great The Triffids or The Go Betweens or Giant Sand or Ultra Vivid Scene or Nick Drake were before everyone else started buying the reissues.
Listen to the Frenchmen. You damn well know that if you write Candidate on your pencil case in Tippex, all the cool kids will want to share their fags with you.