Breathless release their new album See Those Colours Fly on the 29th of July on Tenor Vossa Records. The album is preceded by release of the wistful and enveloping new single ‘We Should Go Driving’ next week, today we debut the video below.
Their first studio album for 10 years, the record is mixed by Karmer and is “so large-sounding”, brimming with three dimensional melody and perfect tiny details.
Bassist Ari Neufeld says:
“We Should Go Driving was the first song we wrote for See Those Colours Fly. We played it in Italy in 2014 virtually the moment we finished writing it and were so pleased with the response, that we arranged to record it when we got back. But a few days before the session, we heard that our drummer Tristram had been in a bad car accident and was in a coma. We had no idea if he was going to live or die, but decided to go ahead and record the song using a drum machine, with the intention of adding real drums later, as we had done on most of the tracks on Green To Blue. Thankfully Tristram survived, but it was obvious that he would need a long time to recuperate. We initially tried another drummer, but ended up using programmed drums, as in the meantime I had started programming drums for the other songs on the album and the real drums just sounded out of place.
We talked a lot about changing the name of the song because of the terrible irony of its title, but in the end, we went back to We Should Go Driving, as that is the main lyric.
With the video. I really wanted to incorporate the visual theme of Jay Cloth’s sleeve, along with that of Kevin Westenberg’s publicity photos. I knew I wanted to use trees and coloured lights and then one day I was out in my friend Sarah’s Fiat, which has an open roof and noticed the amazing view of the sky. I asked her if we could drive around one afternoon, so I could film from her car. She sweetly agreed and we drove up and down the same road (probably looking highly dodgy!) as I filmed on my iphone. I then got a friend to come round and give me some editing tips and just got completely carried away with all the effects and colours, made even trippier, by me getting Covid right in the middle of it all!”
On 29 July 2022 Breathless are set to release their new album See Those Colours Fly on deluxe CD and digital formats. Their first in 10 years, the album will be preceded by a single We Should Go Driving on 15 July and followed on 5 August by the album’s release on deluxe coloured vinyl.
Ari talks about the songs of See Those Colours Fly possessing “a hallucinogenic and dreamlike quality”. This is music divined from the liminal hinterlands, the blissful, addictive likes of ‘We Should Go Driving’ and ‘The City Never Sleeps’ coloured by ineffable magic but always guided by hooks. The album is firmly in the grand tradition of Breathless music – epic, ethereal, otherworldly – but there’s an economy to these dulcet visions, their hunger for wide-open sounds tempered by a discipline, a commitment to the song. “We were definitely very conscious of making this more structured,” Ari nods. “We love our last album (2012’s Green To Blue), but there are songs I listen to now and think, ‘We should have cut this bit – it would have had more impact if it got to the point more quickly’.”
One of the most potent elements of the album comes from outside of the core trio. Breathless first collaborated with Kramer – the New York polymath behind such legendary underground groups as Bongwater, B.A.L.L., Shockabilly and Dogwater, and whose production work has proved an essential component within works by artists like Galaxie 500, Low and Royal Trux – a decade ago, when he mixed three tracks from Green To Blue.
The album is, Ari says, “so large-sounding, it’s astonishing to me.” But See Those Colours Fly is also an album of contrasts, an album of perfect tiny details stitched to create the bigger picture, its resounding, melancholic tapestry anchored by expert songcraft. It is, as Kramer says, excruciatingly beautiful. Let it massage your soul.
BREATHLESS ARE:
Dominic Appleton: Vocals and Keyboards
Gary Mundy: Guitar
Ari Neufeld: Bass, Guitar, E Bow, Drum and Synthesizer Programming
All songs written by Dominic Appleton, Gary Mundy And Ari Neufeld
Except for We Should Go Driving
Written By Dominic Appleton, Gary Mundy, Ari Neufeld And Tristram Latimer Sayer
All songs recorded by Breathless at: Ari Ola Panda, on Apple Logic,
The Playroom and Chapel View
With Additional recording on:
Somewhere Out Of Reach at Press Play By Andy Ramsey
We Should Go Driving at Berry Street By Kevin Poree
Let Me Down Gently at Baker Street Studios By Kevin Poree
Mixed by Kramer
Produced by Breathless
Edited by Kevin Poree, Tim Palmer and Ari Neufeld
