Special Friend is Guillaume Siracusa and Erica Ashleson, a French-American pop duo. A year after getting together to record some songs, the pair are about to release their debut self-titled EP as a joint venture on four (!) fine French labels, including Howlin Banana and our ever-reliable friends at Hidden Bay Records, in what will be their first ever vinyl release.
Sonically, Special Friend bring together multiple influences, primarily 90s-style lo-fi pop (think Yo La Tengo or The Pastels), but also sunny 60s garage and gentle mind-wandering psych. Which is not to say that there music is a lazy derivative. Rather, their style gathers all of these touch-points and fashions them into something undeniably fresh, performing a delicate balance between optimism and nostalgia.
Opener ‘Before’ sets the scene, the easy gallop of Ashleson’s drums heralding relaxed but infectious guitar and oh-so-cool vocals. The resulting mood is so laid back it is almost horizontal, the kind of sluggish shuffle that belongs to humid summer afternoons, faint psych undertones acting as the heat ripple that bends things at the edges, so that the scene itself looks like it’s beginning to melt.
The more upbeat ‘High Tide’ injects a new kick of energy, cutting through the haze with insistent drums, while ‘Mean Street’ bristles with mischievous life. The carefree tone condenses into a more focused garage rock sound during the refrain, but the lasting impression of the track is the loose-limbed spirit that refuses to be outdone.
There’s something almost Stone Roses about ‘Low Tide’, a shambling and shimmering psych-tinged track and occasionally erupts into a snarl of guitar. The song is perhaps the closest the release comes to matching the hallucinogenic album art, possessing a free-floating, out-of-body feeling that twists and bends into vaguely surreal shapes.
However, closer ‘Wonder Why’ runs it close, unfurling with a sluggish air as the vocals emerge flat and doped. The titular question is therefore stretched into rhetorical significance, as though the answer or perhaps the question itself is too big to fully grasp, leaving nothing but spaced out wonder in its wake.
Album artwork by Erica Ashleson