“Guppy then eschews the whole singing thing for waves of many-coloured drone, field recorded texture, and sun-struggling-to-break-through-heavy-cloud burnished flakes of melody”

You can pre-order Guppy now via the Kirigirisu Recordings Bandcamp page. If you liked Ricky Eat Acid or Danielle Fricke’s Burrow (or, probably more likely, you are familiar with Shaw’s other instrumental work) then you’d be wise to do so right away. 

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Intro/Extra is the project’s first release and so a chance for Zarola to set out his stall, to lay down his themes and ideas for the project. He says that Gatsby’s Estate represents the “contact between grandeur and the subtle, social and recluse”. The aim of the project is to present the “decade of excess through a shadowed lens”. Such contradictions are at the forefront of the EP. Why is it, at a time of great material excess and moral freedom, that everyone feels so lonely? Obviously this is where the project’s name comes in. For all the pomp and splendour of Jay Gatsby’s lifestyle, for all the beautiful people who attend his famous parties, he is ultimately unhappy and alone.

You can download the EP via the Gatsby’s Estate bandcamp page, for however much you feel like giving.

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To describe the music I’ll have to resort to genre cliches. It’s certainly pop music. It’s also electronic. And experimental. And it’s definitely dreamy.The album consists of ten songs which pulse and shimmer with blissful synths and some very catchy choruses. Some are mellow and pretty (see the title track ‘Call’ and album closer ‘Sickle’), while others are a lot more dynamic and energetic, with frantic drumming (for example ‘Island’). Another thing which I noticed while listening is the quality of the production on show, I’m not sure whether the band are signed or not (due to their mysterious online presence), but everything really is flawless.

I have seen several comparisons with Radiohead (presumably because the vocals are evocative of a certain Thom Yorke), but the band that I kept thinking about whilst listening was Magic Man (who I coincidentally wrote about yesterday), particularly on tracks such as ‘Comma’ and ‘Boon’ (admittedly that could be due to the fact I’d been listening to Real Life Colour all morning after writing about their new track).

You can buy the album for $10 (£6.65) over at Bandcamp and I would highly suggest you do so.

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Listen to the song in the player and download it for free via Soundcloud or Bandcamp. The track also has an official video which you can see on the band’s Youtube channel.

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