Features
New Noise: Popstrangers, Guerre, Romy, Nite Fields
By Doug Wallen
Wobbly melody, crumbling R&B, bubblegum disco and groggy darkness – it's this week’s roundup of Soundcloud offerings.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
– Call it power-pop with a serious case of the wobbles: ‘Heaven’ shows off New Zealand’s Popstrangers in a beautifully askew light, as if drunk on sheer melody. Following a few requisite singles on Flying Nun, the Auckland trio are releasing their debut album Antipodes early next year. Recorded in the basement of a 1930s dancehall, it’s already being likened to early Radiohead, The Gordons and The 3Ds. It’s out February 26 on the illustrious Carpark label (Beach House, Toro Y Moi) in the US, with Australian release info pending. Until then, let the aptly titled (and all too fleeting) ‘Heaven’ wash over you repeatedly.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Popstrangers - Heaven by Carpark Records
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
– He may arguably steal the show on Collarbones’ ‘Hypothermia’, but Guerre sticks largely to the background in his own new song. But that’s ‘Rashad (Loose Pace)’: crumbling R&B signifiers and nocturnal croon stretched out over nearly six wavering minutes for prime heartbreaking potential. The name-your-price single will be released as part of a two-track download on November 14 through Yes Please. “A more substantial release” – and follow-up to 2011’s Darker My Love EP – has been promised for early 2013.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Rashad (Loose Pace) by Guerre
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
– In the footsteps of last April’s ‘Home’ struts ‘Elixir’, the new single from Romy. With those androgynous vocals weirding things up and that bass and hi-hat combo still tipping happily toward disco, the song re-establishes Romy Hoffman’s interest in chewy dancefloor bubblegum after past forays as Macromantics and A Gender. Produced by Sydney’s Toni Toni Lee (Catcall), the song is drenched in a nostalgia not limited to one specific period: it’s more like a tight feedback loop of generalised yesteryear glow and body-moving release.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] ELIXIR by House-of-Romyo
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– Coinciding with its very own festival next month, Brisbane’s Lost Race label has shared the new 150-run 7” from Nite Fields. The A-side ‘Vacation’ combines low-level shoegaze bleariness with a vocal drag worthy of Stephin Merritt. Recorded and mixed by bassist Michael Whitney, the single’s two offerings were nailed down in a shed in Brisbane’s outer suburb Anstead. ‘Hell/Happy’ is the equally groggy B-side. Celebrate the new Dark Age.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Vacation by NITE FIELDS
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