'Two Rings' is Ice Choir's debut single, taken from their as yet untitled album which is due for release next year. Think Tears for Fears meets Prefab Sprout: eighties bliss.
Ice Choir are Kurt Feldman, Patrick South, Raphael Radna and Avery Brooks - Feldman is better known for his other band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
Two Rings is out now on yesboyicecream / shelflife. Enjoy!
BP x
And that is because this is a laid back, experimental album and, together with his band The Noblettes, Hagelstein has made a set of contemplative jazz-influenced folk songs. The benefit of Ruede's producer-background are clear though, as this album is spoilt by a myriad of tiny flourishes and little moments that elevate these songs to greatness. Listen to 'Berlin', a tribute to the band's home, and it is full of detail - the clicks and shuffles of the percussion in the opening half, the disconcertingly slowed down break half-way through and then the shimmering jazz chorus that seemingly breaks out into flight for the song's second half. The layers of keys, the guitars, the traffic sounds that close it out.
There are more overtly electronic moments - the static and distortion of 'Blue Straight' or (an admittedly more laid back take on) previous single 'Emergency' - but even these moments are not going to bother any dance floors. This is an album of atmospheric pop, as close to Sufjan Stevens and Animal Collective as anything else.
And it is best when it is at its most free. The looping bass and rhythm of 'Leaving the Centre' feels improvised, the lyrics an unbound stream of consciousness. Despite the weighty bass it skitters around your head in floods of reverb. You can't help but worry the whole thing might fall apart if you were to concentrate too hard. 'Romance' is similarly unconstrained, a five-minute instrumental that feels like an extended snapshot of a single moment in time, the melodies unpacking and re-packing themselves over and over.
Ruede Hgelstein and The Noblettes have made an album of joyful ambient pop. It features the kind of music that can only come from the mind of an extremely talented producer. At its best, it is no less than beautiful.
BP x
Soft Pack is out now on Souvenir Music, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD and MP3 [affiliate links].
This isn't to say this second album abandons the Neon Indian sound - it doesn't. It just pushes it outwards to make something larger and more encompassing. At times it's a bloody noisy record, which isn't something you often hear people say about chill wave, and if you didn't tell me I'd probably have guessed this was M83's new one rather than Neon Indian's (more on which in a later post possibly...).
Era Extraña is brilliant simply because it boasts brilliant melodies. The cover depicts a confusing image of a person lit up from within (by a glow stick? Or mobile phone?), seemingly staring into their own hands whilst the sun sets on urban decay in the background. It feels totally fitting, packed with warm colours and messy scenery.
This is melodramatically hormonal music. Listen to the adrenal rush of 'Hex Girlfriend', fuzzy bass and a synthesised take on epic guitar solos and a suitably climatic finale. Similarly 'Fallout' just feels gorgeous - there is something so cool about Palomo's swagger on these tracks, he makes a song about actively wanting to fall out of love with someone sound like the most romantic thing imaginable. There are stacks of songs as good as this and before you know it Era Extraña is almost over, on dawn chorus of 'Sun Irrupt'. The album closes proper with instrumental 'Heart: Release', a bookend to the synthesiser referencing 'Heart: Attack' and 'Heart: Decay' that mark the opening and rough midpoint of the album.
Those that were fans of the previous album may feel like Neon Indian have thrown the baby out with the bath water on Era Extraña. I don't care - they just got themselves a much better baby.
BP x
Era Extraña is out now, available from Amazon.co.uk on CD, LP and MP3 [affiliate links].
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