The support to Faithless last week was a group called Kharma 45.  Prior to the gig several people where handing out EPs from Kharma 45.  I’ve finally got around to listening to the CD and I have to say its actually rather good – both in terms of production values and music.  Their live performance as support was pretty good, although the vocals weren’t high enough in the mix (certainly not in comparison to the mix of the EP).

Kharma 45 are a traditional four piece who make heavy use of sequenced synths when live.  Their recorded sound like wise has plenty of synth sounds adding a richness to the hard edged rock underpinning.  If you’d like to hear Placebo in a upbeat and slightly more melodic mode; or The Delays with an harder rock underpining then Kharma 45 is worth checking out. 

Having just checked out their MySpace website they’ve got three tracks that you can listen to and download including Ectasy which I can highly recommend from the EP.

In addition to the Faithless support slot they’ve been appearing at a lot of the major UK summer festivals, and should manage to build a good grass roots support from it.

I’m guessing here, but to be able to afford to give CDs away, get slots on a number of major festivals they’ve must have some form of backing and some music that they’ll actually sell.  But if you check out their own website or the MySpace entry they don’t have any reference to a recording contract or any material in the pipeline beyond what I’ve just downloaded or given, and a quick Amazon search doesn’t show up anything either!  So what’s happening ?