[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/210322918″ params=”color=000000&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]
Here’s a heads up: Noire are not the right band to listen to when you want your mood lifted. But for the lovelorn in need of empathy, these Sydneysiders know exactly where you’re coming from. Their debut EP, Baby Blue, is set to lull you into an introspective trace. Synth-strewn and laced with raw intimacy, it’s the album that completely understands and nurtures your broken heart.
After steadily making a name for themselves, drip feeding us their gorgeously lush brand of dream pop, Sydney’s Noire finally drop their equally gorgeous debut EP Baby Blue.
Two years in the making, Baby Blue was recorded under the guidance of Wayne Connolly, whose impressive resume has seen him produce albums for the likes of Silverchair, The Vines and Youth Group. The result is an album that begs to be played out from an open top beat up truck driving along endlessly long highways with nothing but flat open plains and vast, moody skies.
Three singles from this five-track EP were delivered in a slow drip over the course of a year; the most recent of these being the title track, Baby Blue, which is at times both intimate and, well, for want of a better word, bluesy. It’s secured together by a gently sashaying melody, awash in reverb, and you definitely feel the Mazzy Star influence. Yet the track still manages to weave in an old age western feel to it. No surprise really when you learn that the band spent a significant amount of time listening to cowboy movies prior to writing this one.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/220571513″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Just Like Honey is another of the EP’s precursory singles, and is driven by drums seething with the feel of David Bowie’s Just Dance. It oozes with electro dream pop feels, textured with a smoky synth hum and Jessica Mincher’s mesmeric vocals, all of these blending together to exude a warm, rich glow. It’s one of those poignant, tragic tracks that at once get and sympathise with how much your heart is aching, and yet insist on squeezing it just a little bit more.
Similarly bound together in grief for loves lost is Minds, which bruises with the dreamy, translucent weight of musical influences such as Air, and comes built around Chris Stewart’s moody, hypnotic bass loop and hazy instrumentals, ushered along by the pad of drums and Mincher’s evocative voice.
Noire’s inspiration is taken from film directors as much as from musicians: namely Jean-Luc Godard and surrealist David Lynch, and the latter in particular was hugely responsible for Pilgrim, the album’s oldest track. Circled by shimmering arpeggios that buzz with reverb, it’s held together by Mincher’s words that seep down into your skin. I know I keep raving over her vocals, but I just can’t help myself. And who could, when faced with lyrics like, “Jesus, I’m a sinner, come into my heart / can you tell me where I fell apart.”
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/210322918″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
