Guillemots make cinematic pop that explores synthesizers and orchestras in the style of Scott Walker, with the experimentality of Talking Heads, the craftiness of Phil Spector and the psychedelic swirls of Yo La Tengo. Notion caught up with them on the eve of the release of their debut album.

Music is a vast sea and Guillemots are floating, rising and riding right on the cusp of a wave that is just about to crash. We are the witnesses, this new band is going to be phenomenal. It may take another album, or maybe the one after that. But they will be wondrous. It is far too easy, as a reader, to dismiss the rapture of music critics’ applause for a new band. There will always be rave reviews about the latest new band, the next big thing. One of the problems in the music industry is that all bands are genre-bound, the major labels' imperative for everything to be easily identifiable and readily marketed to a certain record buying demographic. But there are some bands that defy categorisation, that break the mould. Guillemots are proud to be one of these. The band can simply be described as post-modern. Post-Modernism by definition allows the freedom to be eclectic, to pick and choose your own style, to dive into a melting pot of culture and style and substance.

Classically trained Fyfe Dangerfield met New York jazz-schooled Aristazabel Hawkes as a teenager. The magically named pair were employed by an architect who was "designing a utopian village in Cheltenham" and in need of a soundtrack for a promotional film. "He had all these plans and everything," says enigmatic Dangerfield, "but his utopian village looked exactly like GCHQ!" The two jumped ship after a couple of querulous rehearsals - "I don't think he ever got his utopian village." They started jamming together on the improvisational jazz circuit, parting company when Hawkes left to sail musical oceans on a Caribbean cruise ship. Dangerfield began creating more experimental music, "a guy playing bass clarinet and banging these suitcases full of junk. I learnt a lot through that," he ponders. "I realised that I didn’t enjoy music if it didn't have something melodic going on. I also realised that I couldn't spend the rest of my life carting around three suitcases full of tins." He met Scottish drummer Rican Caol (Grieg Stewart) at a comedy show where his brother sat inside a large cage and told jokes with Stewart's wife. Guitarist MC Lord Magrao was recruited via the small ads. His previous incarnations include a Brazilian noise-core heavy metal band. He sent Dangerfield a message saying he could play the typewriter and the matchbox. These obviously appealed to Dangerfield's eclectic sensibilities - he replied saying that sounded great. "I knew I couldn't be in a band where everybody looks the same and listens to the same music," explains the frontman. "So instead we got together a bunch of misfits and tried to create a travelling circus atmosphere." Dangerfield is an ardent bird-watcher, hence the name. "You're never going to top birdsong as the ultimate pop music. All we can do is try to come close." Hawkes returned to complete the line-up in 2004, on the double-bass.

Their early shows were met with mingled responses. "It would be the sort of thing where people would come to see us live and say it was different every time. We opened one gig banging metal and wailing and played three minutes of free jazz before the first song." After a prestigious publisher turned up at one gig, word spread like wildfire amongst the closely-knit music industry. "At the next gig there were 40 people from the music industry on the guest list. The next week there were literally 250 music industry people there, coming backstage going, "Loved that free jazz at the start." The band have the advantages of being accomplished musicians - the impetus, the knowledge and the infrastructure to free-form with quirky abandon. "Basically all we want to do as a band is jam, mess about and...and," stammers Dangerfield. Improvise? "Yes, a terrible word that." The injection of kettle noises, alarm clocks, a mewing cat, squeaky birdsong and schoolyard giggles hints that the band don’t take themselves overtly seriously. Like Kid Carpet, they have been known to dabble with sonic playfulness, messing about with plastic instruments, cowbells and electric drills onstage. MC Lord Magrao was in a group in native Brazil where he used to play a giant clothes peg. The band decided to milk the situation with the pretentious industry elite for all it was worth, convincing a prospective record label to ship Magrao's gigantic clothes peg over from Brazil - at the expense of £1300. "And we didn’t sign with them!" The band eventually signed to indie Fantastic Plastic, negotiating a deal that allows them to preserve their artistic integrity with complete creative control. "This could probably change the legal side of music forever because we've got so much freedom," Fyfe Dangerfield grins.

"I'm not afraid of the pop side of things but the improvisation aspect is important too", says Dangerfield. "I really want us to have a dual approach to what we do, like, say, Brian Wilson. 'God Only Knows' is the kind of song that everyone's mum loves but you also get real music heads sitting in the room saying, "That’s amazing, it goes in 7/4 there and there's a clarinet and a triangle playing the same part," or whatever. That's what I want us to do. It's about stretching people without feeling like they're being used."

Debut LP 'Through The Window Pane' is capricious and fluid. It has the same mish-mash, eclectic, endearing qualities as Bright Eyes' 'Letting Off the Happiness.' London's Air Studio, where it was recorded, is owned by legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin. It also happens to be the place where Coldplay recorded multi-platinum 'X&Y'. It is refreshing to listen to a band that can actually play their instruments. Not that there is anything wrong with the DIY approach but you feel treated as a listener to be seduced, to be aurally caressed by a variety of instruments, the raspberry ripple swirls of the saxophone, the shadowy piano, the subtle strings. 'Redwings' is sentimental without being cloying - if it was a romantic movie it would be Jean Pierre Jeunot's 'A Very Long Engagement'. A multi-string orchestra groans and sighs and whispers sweet nothings. A xylophone twinkles and sparkles like a fragile star in the background. In places, it seems as if Fyfe Dangerfield is still finding his feet as a lyricist. An occasionally clumsy or lacklustre lyric can be forgiven by the redemptive qualities of the instrumentation and perfect production. At their best the songs have a poignant, storytelling quality - painting a raw and emotive picture of a memory you had forgotten you had. Dreamy 'If The World Ends' soars emotionally and lyrically, "I think we could laugh just enough not to die in vain". Singles 'Trains to Brazil' and 'Made Up Love Song #43' are candy-crafted gems that explore the paradigms of classic pop.

Guillemots are still having difficulties coming to terms with the relative success of their past few months. Starstruck Fyfe Dangerfield can't get over finding that Jake Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst had independently come to see the band at their LA gig. "Mr Gyllenhaal even came backstage to say hello and told us he knew all the words to our songs and sang along to them in his car. And seemed like a lovely chap. It's just quite odd when people you admire from films,music or whatever it might be come to see you, or say something about you in interviews... it's nice, obviously, but sort of makes you giggle a bit childishly when you think you should be old enough to deal with it rationally." He ponders, "A strange business."

They have some guerilla tricks up their sleeve. A prize for inventiveness should be handed to the band who are running a competition for fans to write a set of lyrics - the band set the winning article to music. An ingenious device for scaling that wall of writer’s block? A cunning marketing ploy? A testament to individuality and an earnest desire to get fans involved in the song-writing process?

Their inventiveness has earned them plaudits from Scissor Sisters, Paul Weller, William Orbit and former tour buddy Rufus Wainwright, whose jangling, grown-up pop music has reminiscent qualities. The Streets also love them - so much so that Mike Skinner included their whimsical cover of 'Never Went To Church' as a B-side on the single. The band performed at America's prestigious SXSW festival - the ultimate showcase for aspiring new talent. They are currently on a major tour. Unafraid to get a bit muddy, a bit grimy, they will be appearing at a multitude of festivals in the UK and Europe.

Guillemots join the likes of Arcade Fire, CoCoRosie and Antony and the Johnsons in making exciting, exhilarating new music that cannot be simply described in words, darling little songs that cradle you gently. They have to be seen and heard to be fully appreciated. The orchestral lusciousness and sympathetic melody of debut LP 'Through The Window Pane' prophesises an exciting future for the band. Let's hope that they carry on riding this wave and that there’s plenty more where it comes from.

THE ALBUM ‘THROUGH THE WINDOWPANE’ IS AVAILABLE NOW THROUGH POLYDOR. THE BAND’S SUMMER LIVE DATES INCLUDE: GUILFEST, LOVEBOX , CARLING WEEKENDER AND GET LOADED IN THE PARK.