Noisettes in Atlanta

Today the Paste crew was invited across town to visit the local offices of Universal Music Group. The occasion? Four To Watch artist (May issue) Noisettes are in town, and are playing with TV On The Radio tonight at the Variety Playhouse, after having played in Athens last night. We feasted on meatball subs and Philly cheesesteaks and got to know the band just a bit, then they graced us with a few acoustic songs.

The band was the toast of SXSW 2006, and today we found out why, as those “acoustic” songs were more rocked-out than many fully plugged-in bands. Vocalist Shingai Shoniwa not only has an amazingly powerful voice, she has an uncanny amount of control over it, pulling off falsetto shrieks and accents exactly where she wants to. I didn’t manage to video the most rip-your-head-off moments of the set, but here’s a nice little taste of the band’s song, “The Count of Monte Christo” from their upcoming debut What’s The Time Mr. Wolf? (Yes, that’s another wolf reference for those of you keeping score.)

Finally, here’s a little shot that basically captures the whole band-in-label-conference-room experience. *grin*

Thanks to the crew at Universal for giving us the heads up and inviting us over. And please check Paste‘s May issue for Tom Lanham’s story about the band.