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The members of Leicester band Minnaars, whilst quite a fresh band, are definitely not new to the local music scene.

Guitarist Neil was originally a member Leicester's Tired Irie, but felt that his musical tastes were beginning to differ from other members of the band.

After meeting co-guitarist Gav he was introduced to their now ex-bass player, who has now left them for the Ministry of Defence:

"He was building a helicopter or something – it took up quite a lot of his time. And it wasn't a Mecanno one, it was a real one.

"That final rehearsal when he was airlifted – that was amazing!"

Vocalist Adam came from yet another band, Computer Man, with drummer Ben finally appearing from local music online forum Pineapster.

Oh and new bass player Daniel is so far sticking around with no planned military adventures.

"Mop"

Minnaars have quite a varied sound to their music that sits between math rock and pop, or as the band suggest, "mop".

"We don’t shy away from the pop, and we don't shy away from the prog-Rik-Wakeman-on-ice that we can still be can absorbed in as well."

The new EP 'Minnaars' has been produced with the help of ¡Forward, Russia!'s Tom Woodhead. It stands solid with popular track 'Busy Hands', but is tinged with darker moments:

"We've tried to be a little bit clever and satisfy what we wanted to do really. It’s the first four songs we've committed to tape, so without sounding trite, it was kind of for ourselves really."

The Beat

You can catch bands and artists like the one above on The Beat.

The Beat is ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Leicester's official Introducing show.

You can listen to The Beat every Saturday night from 6.00pm until 10.00pm (103.8, 95.5fm, 1584am and DAB digital radio).

If you miss it you can listen again on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s iplayer.