#13 Scowlin Owl – Mifune

Mifune by Scowlin Owl from Scowlin Owl on Vimeo.

London-based four-piece Scowlin Owl tell us they sing songs “about the 2011 tsunami, creepy preachers, frozen cavemen, the Japanese John Wayne, the childlike love of waterslides and what Dolly Parton’s Jolene may have said in her defence”. The band was formed after Nina Lovelace left Turnstile Junkpile and met Glaswegian Yvonne Bordon and Karina Zakri, the latter fresh off the plane from Norway. Sally Gainsbury then joined to add her violin to the mix and create the sound we get to hear on their debut single Mifune (pronounced, we’re told, Mee-foo-nay), which is already earning them radio play from Nashville to, er, Basingstoke, and several playces in between. The song is the tale of the famous samurai film actor called Toshiro Mifune, and that’s something people don’t sing about every day.