Some of the best signings arrive unexpectedly. In 2007, a demo landed at Dancing Turtle from William Poni, manager of an Italian band called Amycanbe. It was immediately obvious there was something there.
The band were formed in Ravenna in the north-east of Italy — Francesca Amati on vocals, Mattia Mercuriali on guitar, Marco Trinchillo on acoustic guitar and drums, and Paolo Gradari on trumpet, guitar and keys. They had already been building a following at home and drawing attention across Europe, with tour support slots for Skin of Skunk Anansie among their early credits. The demo reflected all of it: a sound that drew on Aphex Twin, The Flaming Lips and Tom Waits and somehow made something cohesive and entirely its own from those influences, anchored throughout by Amati’s warm, unhurried voice.
Dancing Turtle signed them and released their debut album, Being A Grown-Up Sure Is Complicated, in October 2007. A UK tour followed — Sheffield, Leeds, Guildford, London — along with plays on Radio 1. The album was received warmly by everyone who found it, which is often the fate of records that deserve a wider audience than they get.
The years that followed brought further records: Mountain Whales in 2011, Wolf in 2015, the White Slide EP in 2019, and Songs We Need: The Best of Amycanbe in 2021, which draws together the strongest moments from across their catalogue for anyone coming to the band for the first time. Each release has extended their reach without diluting what made them compelling to begin with — Amati’s voice remains the centre of gravity around which everything else orbits.
Being A Grown-Up Sure Is Complicated remains available in the Dancing Turtle shop. Two limited edition vinyl singles from the album are also available: The Song of Matthew & Mark backed with My Ring, and Your Own Thing featuring a remix on the B-side from Daisuke Tanabe — a neat piece of Dancing Turtle history, two label artists in conversation on a seven inch.
