I tend to shy away from covering established acts that I’m not familiar with. Context is important, and the time it takes to delve into a band’s back catalogue could be better spent covering up-and-coming talent. I nearly passed on covering this track from Manchester band Sleep Walking Animals for that very reason – everything about it told me this had to be a band several albums into their career. The music video, with its stunning cinematography and imaginative watercolour animation. The faultless precision of its elegant baroque pop, the Bon Iver-esque falsetto backed by an intricate choral arrangement, the climactic soaring guitar solo that could have been plucked straight from The Bends era Radiohead. Even down to the way it integrates snippets of lyrics in Sri Lankan Sinhala. Everything about ‘Rossignol (සිප ගන්නා විට)’ feels like a band at a creative peak that they’ve been working towards for years, yet the story of Sleep Walking Animals is still very much in its infancy. To hear an up-and-coming band so polished, so inventive, so assured in their identity, and at times even surpassing their influences, is a truly thrilling prospect.