Stealing Sheep is an all-girl three piece band from Liverpool. Vocalist Rebecca Hawley met guitar player Emily Lansley and drummer Lucy Mercer while the three were working in Lark Lane, a street in Liverpool known for its Bohemian reputation. Hawley was already making music using the name Stealing Sheep, before Lansley and Mercer joined months later. She got the name Stealing Sheep from a newspaper headline; a Norwegian band, Enslaved, stole a governor’s sheep as an act of protest because said governor was legislating free downloading.

Each member of the band writes separately, which contributes to the diverse sounds of their music. Hawley is more of an electronica girl, while Lansley is fond of 70s psychedelia and Mercer is a fan of freak folk and was once playing in a few gypsy folks bands. By late 2010, Stealing Sheep had released their first EP, What If The Lights Went Out, through Manchester’s Red Deer Club. Brandishing delicate with three-part harmonies, quaint instrumentation and a playful charm, the EP marked the first phase of the band’s rise.

Noah And The Paper Moon, the band’s second EP, was then released on October 2011. The EP contained eight tracks and ran for roughly 23 minutes, but the layered, textured complicated synths and lo-fi captured just enough dovetailing harmonies and sepulchral lo-fi sound scrapes as well as lyrical alchemy. Though one of the tracks, I Am The Rain (which also happened to be one of the band’s early singles), was recorded in Abbey Road, the rest of the EP was recorded with experimental recording techniques. The girls went to an abandoned school in their hometown and used retro cassettes to create such haunting, vintage vibe.

Stealing Sheep’s music is full of hypnotic beats, spiraling whammy guitars, and mystical harmonies. The low-fi synth whirls in medieval patterns amongst 60’s style drones. It has a richness that doesn’t feel too much, and although it feels undecipherable and loopy it doesn’t necessarily give you a headache. It’s beautiful and whimsical, and you can taste it in the band’s first album, Into The Diamond Sun (released August 2012). The album is full of tracks that feel like they’re made for lazy afternoons—an antidote to cure a raging hangover. It has such cheerful, crisp percussion and angelic harmonies, but managed to not sound like a common pop music. Its hypnotic, breezy tunes and honey-drenched vocals also mould the atmosphere.

In the end, it seems like Stealing Sheep’s name fits the band just fine. Just like the name they’re saddled with, their music is quite peculiar and distinct. Labeling their genre as ‘folk’ or ‘DIY-pop’ sounds lazy once you’ve given their music a thorough listen. Comparing them to another band or musician doesn’t seem appropriate either, because with Stealing Sheep, you can’t quite decide which stream they’re flowing in. Listening to Stealing Sheep feels more like watching an old movie in Technicolor rather than in black and white; it comes with multiple colors on the screen but it still has the distortions there and there to make it feel different and mystical. Rebecca Hawley herself had said that Stealing Sheep is more experimental and their sounds are still evolving. And it would be interesting to see what spices these girls are going to add into their already rich-in-flavors concoction of music.