Mew

In Hellerup, Denmark, singer Jonas Bjerre, guitarist Bo Madsen, bassist Johan Wohlert, and drummer Silas Graae first encountered one another while still in seventh grade. Long before any of them had learned to play instruments, these enterprising teenagers attempted to launch a musical project, though their initial effort under the name Orange Dog proved short-lived. Madsen spent a brief period in the United States, after which the four reunited in their late teens and adopted the name Mew.

Citing My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., the Pet Shop Boys, and Prince among their touchstones, the Danish group delivered a first performance so striking that a publishing agent in the crowd persuaded his firm to abandon its existing plans and instead put out Mew’s debut album. Issued in 1997 in a run of just 2,000 copies, A Triumph for Man earned widespread critical praise. To heighten the visual impact of their concerts, Bjerre began supplying animated visuals that played behind the band.

Three years later Mew issued Half the World Is Watching Me on their newly founded label Evil Office. The album received a limited Swedish release before the band secured an international agreement with Sony; under the terms of that deal the record was withdrawn so the strongest material could be re-recorded for broader distribution. The resulting album, Frengers, appeared worldwide in 2003 and received strong reviews. That same year the Danish Music Critics Awards named it Album of the Year and honored the band as Band of the Year.

Mew expanded the dramatic, densely layered, and atmospheric qualities of their sound on the fourth album And the Glass Handed Kites, which reached Europe and the U.K. in September 2005 and arrived in the United States the following July. Wohlert departed that spring to focus on his growing family, yet the remaining members continued summer touring in the U.S. alongside Bloc Party. Their fifth studio album, No More Stories Are Told Today…, came out in 2009 and marked their final release for Sony. The first compilation, Eggs Are Funny, followed in 2010. In 2015 the Michael Beinhorn-produced +- appeared on Play It Again Sam. Madsen left the group several months later. Mew’s first album without him, Visuals, surfaced in 2017 and included the expansive single “Carry Me to Safety” along with the jazzy track “Twist Quest.”