Introducing…Marvellous Medicine

Finding original talent in Oxford’s music scene usually requires looking further than your college JCR. Marvellous Medicine, are a six-piece from St. Peter’s (excluding a saxophonist from Benet’s) that have just dropped their first EP who are dispelling this myth.

Marvellous Medicine are a rarity on the Oxford student music scene; a band with a small but solid set of tracks who are gigging with a purpose. Their sound is ‘folk-reggae’, but its reductive to pigeonhole a group that takes the technical know-how of three music undergraduates and produces catchy ska-infused pop.

They’ve worked hard to establish themselves in Oxford and seen live they’ve got an infectious joy that sits well with their conception of their sound as ‘marvellous medicine’. But there is an emotional depth to their music that betrays their singer/songwriter origins; ‘Cardiff Town’ is a sensitive paean to not being able to escape your roots, and ‘Memories Break’ manages to be both cinematic in scale and intimate.

They started out just under two years ago as a group of individual songwriters who got together in order to fuse influences as diverse as West African music and classical jazz, pop and Bruce Springsteen (see ‘Homecoming’) – which sounds like it might be some sort of alternative nightmare, but it is ‘music that just tries to express the way they feel’.

There are very few bands doing what they do in Oxford and George, Rob, Holly, Jamie, Piers and Jake deserve props for persevering in an environment that isn’t known for fostering new student music. Their advice to students trying to do the same? Get good at ‘getting up in people’s grills’. They namecheck Gabriel Broadhurst as another musician they admire working in the Oxford scene, citing a voice that could ‘melt butter’.

As George explains they’re ‘not some sort of indie, kooky crew’ but they do have an oddness that is very much part of their appeal. The four songs on their EP are quirky in the best sense of the word: lush, gems with a ‘skank feel’ that hook you in with their distinctive charm.

facebook.com/marvellousmedicine
http://soundcloud.com/marvellousmedicine

Check them out on the following dates;

1st Nov. Bedroom Bar, Shoreditch, London
2nd Nov. Union Ball
8th Nov. Cellar (Isis Promotional)
10th Nov. Gig in Univ (open to all)
21st Nov. Wheatsheaf (feat. Gabe Broadhurst)