Florence and the Machine – Mookychick

Florence and the Machine? She’s a bit like Kate Bush and she’s signed to Moshi Moshi records. Dress code for a Florence gig? None, but consider: Long robes and cape for Florence, MGMT-style psychedelia for you. Mookychick salutes Florence and her Machine!

Florence is Florence Mary Leontine Welch. She’s a girl who makes up songs and sings them. The Machine, according to Florence, is whoever is standing nearby playing an instrument at the time.

If the current slew of female popstrels is leaving you (like me) with a bland aftertaste, you need a mighty minty blast of Florence and the Machine to refresh you. As far as music goes, Florence – ably and rhythmically assisted by her band – is a spangly sparkling diamond powered along by dark, honest and intelligent undertones. Think of an Edgar Allen Poe short story in a vintage tea-dress, rocking touches of avant garde bohemia whilst weaving a bluesy folksy tapestry.

At times, Florence possesses an adorable awkwardness, shutting her eyes and contorting her limbs as she sings the ethereal ‘Girl with one eye’.

Refreshingly believable, Florence has a sweet and genuinely cool vibe that makes you want to hang out with her as she leads you down the paths her mind travels.

She doesn’t contrive her music or her words. I don’t think she even really cares whether you like her or not, unlike the front women who perspire a sort of fake nonchalant desperation. Florence claims that “She makes the kind of music Lily or Kate would make if they’d grown up locked in a cage full of snakes in the basement of a Louisiana funeral home”. She enlists the help of a variety of backing musicians, including Lightspeed Champion’s Dev Hynes, to create her Americana influenced indie-soul.

Florence is set to go mainstream, but for the moment is still bubbling under the indie surface.

Like the equally bountiful fantasy porridge pot, not only does this girl give musical goodness, she’s bound to overflow with it.