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Remember when The White Stripes first hit the scene back in the early 2000s and there was that ‘are-they-or-aren’t-they-brother-and-sister’ confusion?
Later, Jack White revealed the “open secret” was planted so that people would focus on the music and not the two-member group’s members and their real previous relationship (they were married for a time, if you were never let in on the open secret).
Well, it may be 2012, but it looks like a Chicago-raised and Brooklyn-based duo is taking a play from the White Stripes manual all the same. Natalie and Elliot Bergman (Saturday Looks Good To Me, Nomo) make up Wild Belle, a band with very little official bio information available with some press saying they are siblings, and others claiming it to be a White Stripes-style ruse – but either way, their first single, "Keep You" is something I think you should indeed be focusing on (and not their relationship status, as Jack would say).
"Keep You" is a start-to-summer Reggae jam that’s been skewed through a chill-wave filter and gets your head bobbing in a “I want to be laying by a pool with a frozen tropical drink right now” kind of way. Which is to say, a good way.
Now that the weather is getting warm, I find myself seeking out these kinds of tunes more and more. True, it is always sort of warm where I live… but you know what I mean. Spring to me means that Summer is almost here and Summer means lots of time spent outside with my friends and my iPod playing my favorite new warm-weather finds. Wild Belle has just officially made it onto that list.
I love Natalie’s gruff but somehow still sweet vocals and especially dig her brother’s take on the saxophone riffs.
-- Jennie Albana (HelloGiggles.com)