Coming from a rather musical family — with one of his grandfathers playing drums for the Royal Marines, his father, a violinist and his mom, a clarinetist, who both played and met in the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Davey Newington is a Cardiff, Wales, UK-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrument, who’s known as the creative mastermind of indie rock/psych rock act Boy Azooga, a solo recording project that derives its name from the 1994 major motion picture, The Little Rascals. Interestingly, Newington, who took up drums when he had turned 6 and played in a number of Welsh orchestral and jazz bands as a teenager.
As the story goes, Newington had an art teacher, who sent the then-aspiring musician off to town to buy Can’s Ege Bamyasi but along with that, Newington cites the like of Sly & The Family Stone, Caribou, Black Sabbath, Outkast, Van McCoy and The Beastie Boys among others as influences on him and his own work. For live shows, Newington recruited friends Daf Davies, Dylan Morgan and Sam Barnes, and as a quartet the band can reportedly shift from psych rock, krautrock, and shoegaze within a turn of a phrase. In fact, their latest single “Face Behind Her Cigarette” to my ears manages to nod at the dance floor friendly, psych pop of In Ghost Colours-era Cut Copy and the motorik grooves of Can but with a breezy, hook laden, almost dance floor friendly air; however, as Newington notes, the song nods to Hot Butter’s 1972 smash, synth pop album Popcorn and Nigerian funk legend William Onyeabor. “This song is basically just a celebration (rip off) of the late great William Onyeabor,” Newington explains. “I wanted the percussion to be purposefully a bit too loud, maybe by the usual standard. Loads of Onyeabor’s percussion is blaring in the mix, but it makes it sound so live and feely. I wanted to create that feeling of being in the room where the music is being played.”
The recently released music video features the band playing over some superimposed psychedelic and retro-futuristic imagery and effects — and in some way it possesses a delightfully cheesy DIY vibe.
