Originating as the home recordings of Louie Kiley and Vinny Marksohn, Burlington’s Bleach Day work at the intersection of pop, rock and folk, hurdling the limitations of any one genre and wrapping the result in a comforting blanket of lo-fi textures. As such, there’s something of a paradox at work in their music, new ground found in the recombination of vintage elements and styles, producing a sound at once nostalgic and inventive. Not quite of the past, not quite of the future, Bleach Day are capable of looking both forwards and back—utilising where we have been in novel ways in order to chart where we could be.
Next month sees the release of a brand new Bleach Day album, as if always, recorded over two years between other projects (such as performing on Wished Bone‘s Cellar Belly). Having since grown into a five piece, the record finds Bleach Day at their most versatile and vivid, ambling bass and twelve-string guitar and deep, dawning percussion combining to form a sound that possesses a rich, translucent form. Equally adept at spacey expanses and sun-bleached warmth, this “impressionistic and painterly palette” allows the band a broad scope in theme and focus, from introspective intimacy to soaring trips beyond the self and back again. As the press release explains:
as if always composes a sonic language that takes the listener through a story of growth and self discovery in its most primeval form, which mirrors a full life cycle from birth to death. Through struggle you learn to confront your fears, your shadows, and your limitations to become the person you are meant to be. It’s a journey to a place that feels far away—until you realize it’s actually within yourself, and always has been.
Today we’re delighted to be able to share the album’s lead single, ‘in limbo’. Taking the languid cordiality of classic pop and applying a lo-fi sheen, the song has an uncanny edge, a certain spectrality, phasing in and out of solid existence as the verses and refrain cycle through. The result is something like a haunted transmission, a hopeful message from the past coloured melancholic by distance and context, and one that fades into the empty, barren distortion of blank tape.
as if always is out on the 6th March via Birdwatcher Records and you can pre-order it now on vinyl, CD and cassette from Bandcamp.
