Mumford And Sons - Pure Groove, London - Friday 19th December 2008

Over the past year or two, one of the real shifts in the music industry in London has been in its record shops. On one hand, the crappy chains are deservedly struggling, as people realise that they don't need to spend £13 on a chart album any more. At the same time, the "proper" record shops seem to be going from strength to strength. Selling original stuff that is hard to find elsewhere, and being great places to spend time, the more innovative shops are also going into the gig business, with lots of instore performances. Pure Groove is one such good shop - selling only 100 items, hand picked by the staff, just their choice of 100 albums, singles and t shirts (plus 100 free downloads as well, from their website). Doing that in Central London (rather than up Holloway Road, where the shop used to be) is a risky thing to try, but the in store performances really attract people in now.

One such performance attracted me in, by Mumford And Sons - a band whose MySpace tunes and EPs had really impressed me. In fact, they had been on almost constant rotation on my iPod for the previous couple of weeks, so this was an easy choice to make about whether to go. I got there half an hour before show time, and joined a queue which quickly got quite a bit longer. We waited in the cold for half an hour or so, and were then let into the shop, walking past some blokes standing having a cigarette by the door as we went.

Those blokes turned out to be the band, who soon afterwards walked through the shop, and got up on stage for a 4 song set. I had heard 2 of the songs before, but the first and last ones were new to me - and I really enjoyed the whole set from start to finish. The singer bears more than a passing resemblance to Carl Barat, but it is his voice that really stands out - it is an absolutely rasping, piercing voice, incredible. The band's music is reminiscent of Noah and The Whale (and the other London bands from the same scene), but seems much more folky and American at the same time. Although it is all rather familiar, they definitely seem to have something about them that others do not - and some pretty good songs as well.

This was of course a very short set, but I really, really like this band - they are going to record a new EP in January or February, so hopefully that will mean more gigs very soon. If there is any justice, Mumford And Sons will be coming to many more peoples attention next year.