The recondite moniker of Sunless ’97 gives little away about this halcyon, vaporous ‘chillwave’, Lonodn-based trio. Serving only to add a certain mystique to the group, whose sound washes, shifts, wafts and melts over the imagined scenery. As the title of their EP demonstrates; they are indeed ‘Making Waves’.
The langauge they use perfectly sums up their material: ‘Illuminations’ illuminates; ‘Heaven Below’ places us up on an heavenly vantage point; and ‘Wicked Gravity’ takes us to a place where gravity is…well, playful!
Opening trip-pop swoon, ‘Illumination’, is Sunless ’97s calling card: single potential written all over it. Dreamily envisaged layers of iridescent fog and grandoise swooping fragile-melodics cascade over the langour production – Big Dada producer and solo artist Kwes tackles the production duties. Sounding not too disimilar to the recent material by CANT, the boy/girl balanced lead vocals ache plaint romantic seasonal analogies: “In the Autumn to my bleeding/Winter comes like an attack”.
That, beautifully delivered, sentiment carries on through to the rest of this EP; though in not quite the same ethereal delight. Closing bookend ‘Whenever I Can’ takes a stab at the slacker psych of MGMT whilst vaguely bathing in the same waters as Panda Bear. Suffused with pitch-shift dolefull tones and orotund wistfulness, the paean prose “I know that I love life/Whenever I can” mantra can be a tad saccharine and sentimental.
Apart from the over-played induced suffocation of effects, and drift towards Hall & Oates superfluous dry-ice synth; ‘Making Waves’ is a rapturous glide through the outer perimeters of electro-pop and shoegazing.
Due: 21/11/2011
[Rating:4]
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