“Paris” by Hairband

Paris was burning last week, with temperatures in the 40s. But Paris is totally cool now, thanks to Glasgow 5-piece band Hairband, with a fresh breeze of a new single of that name:

Hairband’s French language skills exceed my dim memory of High School French, but it’s their music and infectious enthusiasm for creating rule-bending pop that wins once again.

“Paris” finds a new way to combine bass and drums, three interwoven counter-point guitar patterns, and melodic lighter-than-air voices, into a gloriously melodic rhythmic push and pull of a timeless post-punk funk tune.

As with Hairband’s fine 2018 EP this song (and its digital ‘B-Side’ “Varipapa”) doesn’t sound like anything from the post-punk era so much as simply and effectively capturing the exploratory, non-conformist experimentation of those times. Qu’est-ce qu’ils sont sur?

 

“Winter Sun” by Lia Mice

A few months ago PopLib featured a song called “Memory Maps” from a new Lia Mice release called “I Love You” out about now on Rice Is Nice Records.

The Lia Mice artist bio there mentioned a 2012 album “Happy New Year” which “hid it’s dark pop melodies amongst cinematic territories, chimes, bells and vintage synths, performed at… hypnotically slow tempos.”

If the new release was Lia Mice’s first experimentation with “danceable tempos” then the idea of an album performed at (undanceable) “hypnotically slow tempos” was immediately appealing.

I found “Happy New Year” on the Lia Mice bandcamp and bought a copy of the LP. It’s fantastic. Here’s “Winter Sun” which opens side two of the album.

Despite my usual reservations about coloured vinyl and ‘splatter’ mixes this one not only looks great but sounds really good and clean too. The only noise I notice is the noise that is meant to be on it.

“Happy New Year” is hypnotic and melodic slow-wave dream-pop with a light industrial feel to it. Think “Twins Peaks” soundtrack recorded within earshot of a European steelwork mill rather than a Pacific Northwest lumber mill. But there’s also a devotional air to it too – evident on “Winter Sun” here.

I think Lia Mice originally came from Melbourne, Australia and the album certainly feels connected to the somewhat Gothic industrial experimental electronic music that city has a reputation for producing since the 1980s. But it also feels connected to the wider realm of atmospheric soundtrack music and post-dance music genres. It’s plenty danceable too, once you find the ebb & flow here.