Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - 'Clap Your Hands Yeah' (Witchita) Released 23/01/06

As Gigwise readers are aware, the internet is a wonderful thing. Not only can you keep up to date with the latest Pete Doherty arrest as it happens, invest half a day for a net profit of minus 79 cents on Party Poker, as well as looking at pictures of scantily clad animals from Eastern Europe, you can also help rip down the bastions of the record industry. Right on! Granted, opinion is divided over as to whether some websites are simply new ways to send demos to record companies or a revolution which has placed the means of production in the hands of the individual, rather than the suits. But the suits are worried – and the evidence is presented today on record shelves all over the country.

On the same day as Britain’s Arctic Monkeys release their debut album to hyperbolic critical and commercial acclaim – their American equivalents, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, put out their eponymous long-player. Both acts gathered unstoppable momentum on the web, with Clap Your Hands managing to sell an astounding 50,000 copies of their self-produced LP all by themselves. Fuelled by the internet, their word of mouth snowball turned into an avalanche following a positive review on a well-placed website.

Now, with a distribution deal with Witchita Records in place, Clap Your Hands have put themselves in a position to be this year’s Arcade Fire without having to defer to any record company bullshit. No wonder the suits are worried. Unsurprisingly for a band together enough to stick 50,000 stamps onto 50,000 envelopes, Clap Your Hands’ have a more ‘mature’ sound compared to their British cousins. Led by singer-songwriter Alec Ounsworth, Clap Your Hands inhabit a musical universe where classic American alternative bands such as Talking Heads, Mercury Rev and the aforementioned The Arcade Fire loom large.