Biography
Little Comets, a quartet from Britain’s North East, earned early notice for staging unannounced performances in unexpected spaces. Their intricate drum patterns and guitars colored by Afro-beat earned them the tag of Britain’s answer to Vampire Weekend. Robert Coles on lead vocals and guitar and his brother Michael on lead guitar, along with bassist Matt Hall and drummer Mark Harle, all came from Sunderland and Newcastle and launched the group in 2008. Drawing on sources that ranged from Debussy and Paul Simon to Roald Dahl, they issued their debut single, “One Night in October,” the following year; it climbed to number three on the U.K. indie chart. A clip of a New York subway busker covering Michael Jackson prompted the band to film itself playing in university lecture halls, on the Metro, and even among the bread shelves in a Marks & Spencer. Columbia Records noticed the unconventional campaign and signed the quartet in 2009. After opening for the Twang, Hockey, and the Noisettes across the U.K., the musicians headed to France to cut a self-produced debut. The partnership with Columbia ended before the album appeared; the band later stated that “it didn’t sound enough like Kesha” for the label’s taste. Their next release, the single “Isles,” arrived on independent imprint Dirty Hit Ltd. at the close of 2010. In May 2011 drummer Mark Harle revealed he was departing. The remaining members regrouped and delivered their second studio album, Life Is Elsewhere, in October 2012. For the follow-up, Hope Is Just a State of Mind, issued in 2015, the band moved to the Smallest Label, which also put out their fourth album, Worhead, two years later.
Albums
