From Sheffield UK comes a quintet that call themselves Monkey swallows the Universe. The name is somewhat misleading, – I expected something loud and noisy, or maybe some arty dark electronic project, but they fooled me. This is beautiful acoustic based music with female vocals, strings, glockenspiel and fine, fine, fine melodies. Not at all dark, loud or noisy, just very good and very beautiful. So far, they have released an album, “The Bright Carvings” in 2006, and two singles, “Science” (2006) and “Little Polveir” (2007). I just bought the new single and the album on iTunes (downloading right now!), so you can get it there. Monkey swallows the Universe will release a new album called “The Casket Letters” shortly on Loose Records.

Here are three songs by the band, all available from their bandsite (link above). Another song is available for download on myspace.
For some strange reason (probably the mp3 encoding), clicking the mini-player on the left side of the mp3 link will make these songs sound like they were made by smurfs or monkeys or something. The music goes too fast on the mini-player, but if you download them, they are OK.

Monkey swallows the Universe – Florence

Monkey swallows the Universe – Sheffield Shanty

Monkey Swallows the Universe – Jimmy down the well

As a bonus, – here’s the video for their beautiful single “Science”: