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Single/Download Review

Sennen/ Dorias Baracca/ Air Formation/ Led Er Est/ Wild Nothing/ Is Tropical
singles roundup

Article written by Ged M - Feb 2, 2010

I’m thinking Ride when I hear the Norwich four piece Sennen: same insistent waves of guitar, same panorama of widescreen sound, same bittersweet shoegazing tunes. ‘Age of Denial’ (Hungry Audio) is vigorous dreampop, with the emphasis on the ‘pop’, both rousing and uplifting. Norfolk might be known for its turkeys but this is the dog’s bollocks of shoegaze. Myspace

Dorias Baracca are teenage Danish shoegazers and, on the evidence of the ‘Hands At Melting Point EP’ (Club AC30 Records), you can believe the claim that they were brought up on Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Ride and the Cocteau Twins. Sadly, they never learned the virtue of brevity (the four tracks take up 31 minutes) and the 11- minute ‘Birthday’ descends into cliché as it takes a Slowdive up its own shoegazing fundament. Much better is the Cocteaus-indebted ‘Sandtown’, but the golden track is ‘Silence’, which is whispery and floaty and has an elegance that belies their young years. Myspace

Brighton band Air Formation are clearly Robert Smith fans; ‘Low December Sun’ (Club AC30 records 7”) is the first single from their fourth album and has the gothic, gloomy tones of the late 80s Cure. But shot through the washes of keyboards and guitars, and the somberly intoned vocals, are shafts of melodic sunlight, and at those moments the song takes off, like one of those yogic flyers. Myspace

One of my less enjoyable purchases from the Captured Tracks label is Led Er Est's new single. ‘Poll Gorm’ (Captured Tracks 7”) is fast and furious 80s synth-pop, experimental in the sense that there isn’t really a hook. I slightly prefer the Cure-ish ‘Man With Tree’, slower and more dirge-like with bubbling electro-pop backing but this record is really too much of a reminder of the depressive goth-disco synth bands of the 80s for comfort. Myspace

The next Captured Tracks single, though, is a different proposition. Wild Nothing is a one man band from Blacksburg, Virginia, a Mr Jack Tatum. ‘Summer Holiday’ (Captured Tracks 7”) reveals him to be obsessed with C86 and Scando-pop (Radio Dept seem a clear influence); it’s elegant, a little ethereal, with very pretty choruses and a real 80s feel – a bit like the Pains of Being Pure At Heart with less noise-overlay. The romantic lyrics about driving to Paris and sleeping in your brother’s bed are very school-of-C86 too. ‘Vultures Like Lovers’, meanwhile employs lots of echo and spacey effects for a trip to Cocteau Twins-ville. Gorgeous. Myspace

‘When O’ When’ by London “squat rock” trio Is Tropical (Hitclub Records 7”) doesn’t know whether it’s Mumford & Sons-style rocked-up folk or Klaxons-esque electro-disco and irritates the hell out of me by constantly flicking between those poles, from twee acoustic tinkles to fat and farty synth beats. The lyrics are irritating rather than being mysterious and ‘Seasick Mutiny’s plinky plonky electronica reveals them as musical dilletantes. But they look good in pastels, which will be enough for NME. Myspace

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