By Pearse Grady
Indie pop’s Mystery Jets are making their mark at Margate Lido this Summer with an intimate headline show as part of new 00s indie celebration – Young Love.
Special guests will be Will Rees and Is Tropical.
The band have legendary status among the skinny jeaned indie kids of nearly 20 years ago when they gifted us with their first EP- Zootime. Since then they have continued to share their psychedelic folk pop, taking influences from Syd Barrett, Hall & Oates and David Bowie.
The outfit formed in the mid-90s when the group’s frontman, Blaine Harrison, was only 12. The band was initially called the Misery Jets, in honour of the Heathrow-bound jets that habitually roared over their native Eel Pie Island, but they changed the name when Blaine misspelled “misery.”
The Mystery Jets were essentially a family project, with Blaine on drums; Blaine’s dad Henry Harrison on bass and Blaine’s friend William Rees on guitar. Henry eventually switched from bass to guitar, Kai Fish joined up as the group’s bassist and Blaine switched from drums to keyboards.
The group tried out a drum machine and a local youngster named Max before finally latching onto drummer Kapil Trevedi.
Five Tracks EP, recorded soon after Trevedi joined the group, was released on 679 Records in 2005 and their first full-length album, Making Dens, was released the following year.
Zootime, a collection of Making Dens tracks plus remixes and songs from 2006 EPs such as You Can’t Fool Me Dennis and Diamonds in the Dark, was released by Dim Mak in spring 2007. Released in 2008, Twenty One peaked at number 42 on the UK albums chart and boasted the single “Young Love,” featuring indie folk queen Laura Marling.
The band’s third full-length, Serotonin, arrived in 2010. Following a secret show at the 2011 SXSW festival, the band set up a mobile studio and recorded the Texas-informed Radlands record, which was released in April of 2012.
Shortly before the release of the album, Fish left Mystery Jets, replaced by Pete Cochrane for their upcoming UK tour. Fifth studio album, Curve of the Earth, was recorded over a three-year period beginning in 2013. Released in early 2016, the album was entirely self-produced in their homemade studio, marking a shift into progressive rock territory with Harrison citing Pink Floyd and King Crimson as major influences.
In August 2019 the band took on the alt-right movement with the politically charged single “Screwdriver” which appeared on their equally topical sixth long-player. A Billion Heartbeats.
Mystery Jets play at Olby’s Soul Café in Margate on Friday 26th July . Doors open 7pm, performance starts at 8pm, closes 10.30pm.
Tickets are £29.40 from Skiddle here