Nova Heart

New to Indie Shuffle is Nova Heart, a three-piece, all female group based in Beijing and founded in 2012. Their music already has a huge following in China. Nova Heart is the brainchild of Helen Feng. Helen has lengthy and impressive music cred to go with her reputation of being "the Blondie of China" and "the Queen of Beijing Rock." Helen was born in Beijing and grew up in the U.S. and Canada. She is a former VJ for MTV China and has been involved in numerous indie and electronic acts and projects spanning over a decade. With that kind of diversity and longevity, you'd expect Helen's stuff to be good. And it is! Built around a simple guitar riff, this track "Lackluster No." is sung in English but it throws back to the band's Asian influence, with small snippets of spoken lyrics in Chinese. I like the cross-pollination of East and West culture all inside a four-minute track. "Lackluster No." comes from Nova Heart's self-titled album, out October 2. They have tour dates coming up this summer in Europe, including an appearance later this month at the Glastonbury Festival. More details below and on their Facebook page. JUNE 22 London, Old Blue Last (Communion) 23 London, The Islington 26 Glastonbury Festival 30 London, House of Vans JULY 01 London, The Kings Head (Killing Moon) 04 Milano, Diz Festival 24 Grenoble, Festival Cabaret Frappé AUGUST 28/29 Helsinki, Modern Sky Festival