Midnight Rodeo shoot from the hip, chopping and darting like a stiff desert wind.

Words: Elvis Thirlwell | Photo: Jack Stoddart

The group chanced upon a Brazilian parade one day and became imbued with its jubilant rhythms, so their story goes. As such, a party of percussion nourishes, the snare drum bustles and echoes of Link Wray rumble throughout ‘The Big Melt’.

Riding on these cantering waves, a lead guitar twangles and snakes, chopping and darting like a stiff desert wind. Meanwhile Maddy Chamberlain’s lilting voice calls from up high, drenched in a mysterious, psychedelic seduction. 

The kind of sounds that Midnight Rodeo magic up here are so elegantly formed and tastefully conceived – like a gorgeous fusion of Los Bitchos and La Luz –  it could easily have sprung from the hippy kingdoms of California, Melbourne, or mainland Europe. If you’d have told me that, I wouldn’t have believed you. But nay! From the mighty midlands, Midnight Rodeo are in the transcendency.