Bad Sounds session

Ewan Merrett, one half of Bad Sounds' founding siblings, said recently that they’ve always wanted to put on a show. To blow people’s minds. To make people smile. For Callum, the other half of this brotherly songwriting team, The Flaming Lips are the standard bearers for this sort of thing. Starting out, then, in the small UK town of Chippenham, this meant turning an old leaf blower into a confetti cannon and generally causing mayhem in front of not very many people. The venues they’re playing these days are far too big for a leaf blower, but they're still very much bringing the ruckus.

Ewan is the hip-hop obsessed realist, with a love of beats, sampling and surreal everyday-referencing lyrics, while Callum is the psych-pop fantasist focussed on transcending real-life boredom. Brought together, this means a sunshine-pop alchemy infused with old-school beats, ear-worming hooks and eccentric lyrics that's equal parts Britpop, Beck, old-school hip-hop (and the funk it samples), and screwy electronica. It's a sound that's still closely aligned with the brothers' bedroom listening habits (De La Soul, D'Angelo and indie rock) and informed by their never-ending trawl around record shops seeking out rare samples.

Since 2014 Bad Sounds have been a full band, featuring drummer Olivia Dimery, guitarist Charlie Pitt and bassist Sam Hunt. With a bigger, bolder sound – check out their breakthrough tracks Avalanches and Wages – the band are on BBC Radio 1's radar as next-big-things and recently signed their first major label deal. It won't be long until they're crowdsurfing in enormous zorbs, a la Wayne Coyne, then.

Watch Bad Sounds exclusively perform Meat On My Bones.