Without them there would be no Kills, no Ting Tings and no She Keeps Bees.

I could probably die happy having never heard the first two, but the boyfriend-on-drums/girlfriend-on-guitar Brooklyn duo of Andy LaPlant and Jessica Larrabee are a different matter. Perhaps taking as their maxim Jonathan Richman’s line about The Velvet Underground – “Spooky tone on a Fender bass/Played less notes and left more space” – the couple turn out sexy, stripped-back indie blues topped with lyrics which draw on all the usual stuff but say it in the sort of literate, bare-bones way trademarked by PJ Harvey.