Boy-girl duo The KVB like lurking in the dark corners of London shoegaze. But, they’ve recently escaped the smoggy city and ventured into the damper Berlin backstreets to summon the forces of an even darker haze.
Goth couple Nicholas Wood and Kat Day describe themselves more as an audio-visual project than a band. Basically it’s because they like inducing hallucinatory states by mixing their spaced out sound with pixel-infested videos. Go to their gigs or watch any of their clips and you’ll get what I mean. It’s a full on sensory overdose.
And with a name like Out Of Body, their latest EP is no exception. Recorded in Berlin with help from Stereolab’s Joe Dilworth (who also offered his ace drumming skills), their new EP clothes you in a long, black trench coat and lures you down your mind’s back alleys.
Stepping into the haze with an eastern bloc organ riff, opener All Around You is a black cloud of introspection. Synthesisers leap from graffitied wall to graffitied wall and hurdle into Wood’s reverb heavy vocals, surrounding you from all sides.
Fleeing the dead end street you’re then dragged through a thoroughfare of oppressive beats. From Afar and Heavy Eyes are the roads most travelled by goths with their Cure-like guitars: add some brooding lyrics vandalised by reverb and shoegaze never leaked so much darkness. Turning to some dreamy psych, Wood’s drowsy vocals sleepwalk into Day’s whispers in the floaty Cartesian Bodies. Staying aboard the dream boat, Across the Sea then swims amongst ethereal strings that loom below nightfall.
But, drifting the streets in a terrorising drum machine, it’s not long before you swerve back to the grim and dire pavements with closer Between Suns. A heavy booted beat that creeps closer and closer with each menacing synth and drum thump, it hunts you down and swallows you by daybreak.
Released just this week, their new EP builds a wall of darkness with hazy tunes that’ll have you lurking in the back alleys of your mind and wandering far from your body. Yep, be prepared for another KVB sensory overdose, especially now that their first eyeball-messing clip is also here. Check it out below.
FIND OUT MORE ON
▲ FACEBOOK ▲ BANDCAMP
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2673624877 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=4182861135]
