Wild Beasts

Hayden Thorpe and Ben Little were school-friends in North West England when they first started playing music together as the duo Fauve (it's French for wild beasts) in 2002. After adding Chris Talbot on drums, they changed their name to Wild Beasts and recorded a self-titled EP in 2004, with Tom Fleming joining them as bass player when they relocated to Leeds in 2005. Thorpe's soaring, falsetto semi-operatic voice won them a big fan base, making their mark with their first single Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants; and the band was widely tipped for stardom by the music press. Signed to the Domino label, they released debut album Limbo, Panto in 2008, a slightly quirky, vaudevillian collection of songs that included another single, The Devil's Crayon. Promoted by the single Hooting and Howling, second album Two Dancers in 2009 propelled them to greater popularity, marking their arrival as one of the UK's most original and refreshing bands and earning a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize.