Broken Boat are Daniel Bahrami and Brendan Kearney, an acoustic folk duo who met whilst at University in Plymouth. They are now based in Hertfordshire where they hope to make their mark on the London folk scene. They go armed with boxfuls of their recently released EP ‘Peace and Quiet‘. Daniel, who provides vocals (and guitar), has a very pure sounding voice, no doubt helped by his early years of playing in a choir. Brendan provides guitar as well as a selection of instruments. They are influenced by the likes of Jose Gonzalez and Davendra Banhart who they’ve featured covers of on youtube previously demonstrating some nice guitar skills. This EP sees them spreading their wings and developing their own sound.
The strongest track, by far for me, is Yellow Cars, helped pretty much by the additon of a female vocalist. The duet gives them a maturer and richer sound and the additional harmonies add a greater emotional depth. My only criticism is that I would have opted for this as the EP title track instead of ‘Peace and Quiet‘ on which the unnatural sounding quivering vocals made it sound a bit too strained and weaken the whole sincerity of the song. That all said, the EP does demonstrate promise for this young duo who will no doubt develop their sound further as they get to test and experiment on the competitive London scene.
Peace and Quiet is released on Wolf Wins Records.