BAYONNE
Each song on Bayonne’s Drastic Measures is orchestral in texture, unfolding in countless layers and kaleidoscopic tones. With great intensity of detail, the Austin-based artist otherwise known as Roger Sellers deepens that sonic complexity by weaving in elegantly warped samples of the field recordings he’s gathered for over a decade. But in its powerful melodies and pristine arrangements, Drastic Measures ultimately bears a pure pop lucidity even in its most grandiose moments.
Driven by the dynamic percussion and luminous piano work signature to Bayonne’s sound, Drastic Measures takes its title from a track that embodies the album’s central theme: the instability inherent in an artist’s life, and the often-futile attempt to attain balance.
The crystalline production of Drastic Measures marks a departure from Primitives, Bayonne’s entirely self-produced and more loosely structured full-length debut. In shaping the immaculately composed album, Sellers partly drew inspiration from the sublime melodicism of 1960s symphonic pop.
As Drastic Measures muses on such matters as fractured relationships and the erosion of mental health, Bayonne builds a dizzying tension between the album’s bright and dark elements. On “Uncertainly Deranged,” skittering beats and shining piano tones clash with lyrics echoing the anxiety of self-doubt. One of the most delicate and simply adorned tracks on the album, “Same” spins a gentle reverie out of a moment of wistful longing. And on “I Know,” bouncy rhythms and whistled melodies make a brilliant backdrop to Bayonne’s meditation on overwhelming remorse.
TALOS
"I started my first band around the same time I started studying architecture," says Eoin French, the Irish artist better known as Talos. "The two fed into each other and their influences just naturally started to cross-pollinate, so they've always been intertwined in my life."
One listen to Talos' brilliant debut, Wild Alee, and his architecture background begins to make perfect sense. The music is grand and soaring, perpetually reaching skyward while remaining firmly grounded with foundations dug deep into the soil. Some songs are bright and airy, full of natural light, while others lend an eerie and imposing atmosphere, all shadowy corners and mirrored hallways. Blending elements of electronic pop and soulful R&B with hypnotizing synthscapes and haunting vocals, each track offers its own vivid sense of space, conjuring up an immersive journey that blurs the lines between dreaming and waking, between reality and fantasy, between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
pon its original release overseas in 2017, Wild Alee was hailed as "a spectacularly assured debut" (The Irish Times), while The Independent called it "stunning," and The Line Of Best Fit raved that the music "will leave your hairs standing on end." Some of the earliest fans in the States included The New York Times T Magazine, which praised the songs' "taut, chilling complexity," and The FADER, which swooned for their "swirling" splendor. The record garnered love from BBC Radio 1, racked up more than 16 million streams on Spotify, made the shortlist for the prestigious RTÉ Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year, and earned Talos (which performs live as a six-piece) a sold-out release tour along with festival appearances everywhere from Electric Picnic to Airwaves.
Now, as French prepares a deluxe reissue of Wild Alee complete with a four-track bonus EP titled Then There Was War, it's difficult to overstate just how unlikely all of this seemed only a few years ago. Back then, French was readying himself for a new life in America when unexpected personal challenges suddenly conspired to ground him just weeks before his planned departure. Instead of stepping on a plane, he found himself sitting at home with no hope and no prospects. Writing music became a form of escape, an opportunity to leave his circumstances behind and create his own world right where he was.
BAYONNE
Each song on Bayonne’s Drastic Measures is orchestral in texture, unfolding in countless layers and kaleidoscopic tones. With great intensity of detail, the Austin-based artist otherwise known as Roger Sellers deepens that sonic complexity by weaving in elegantly warped samples of the field recordings he’s gathered for over a decade. But in its powerful melodies and pristine arrangements, Drastic Measures ultimately bears a pure pop lucidity even in its most grandiose moments.
Driven by the dynamic percussion and luminous piano work signature to Bayonne’s sound, Drastic Measures takes its title from a track that embodies the album’s central theme: the instability inherent in an artist’s life, and the often-futile attempt to attain balance.
The crystalline production of Drastic Measures marks a departure from Primitives, Bayonne’s entirely self-produced and more loosely structured full-length debut. In shaping the immaculately composed album, Sellers partly drew inspiration from the sublime melodicism of 1960s symphonic pop.
As Drastic Measures muses on such matters as fractured relationships and the erosion of mental health, Bayonne builds a dizzying tension between the album’s bright and dark elements. On “Uncertainly Deranged,” skittering beats and shining piano tones clash with lyrics echoing the anxiety of self-doubt. One of the most delicate and simply adorned tracks on the album, “Same” spins a gentle reverie out of a moment of wistful longing. And on “I Know,” bouncy rhythms and whistled melodies make a brilliant backdrop to Bayonne’s meditation on overwhelming remorse.
TALOS
"I started my first band around the same time I started studying architecture," says Eoin French, the Irish artist better known as Talos. "The two fed into each other and their influences just naturally started to cross-pollinate, so they've always been intertwined in my life."
One listen to Talos' brilliant debut, Wild Alee, and his architecture background begins to make perfect sense. The music is grand and soaring, perpetually reaching skyward while remaining firmly grounded with foundations dug deep into the soil. Some songs are bright and airy, full of natural light, while others lend an eerie and imposing atmosphere, all shadowy corners and mirrored hallways. Blending elements of electronic pop and soulful R&B with hypnotizing synthscapes and haunting vocals, each track offers its own vivid sense of space, conjuring up an immersive journey that blurs the lines between dreaming and waking, between reality and fantasy, between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
pon its original release overseas in 2017, Wild Alee was hailed as "a spectacularly assured debut" (The Irish Times), while The Independent called it "stunning," and The Line Of Best Fit raved that the music "will leave your hairs standing on end." Some of the earliest fans in the States included The New York Times T Magazine, which praised the songs' "taut, chilling complexity," and The FADER, which swooned for their "swirling" splendor. The record garnered love from BBC Radio 1, racked up more than 16 million streams on Spotify, made the shortlist for the prestigious RTÉ Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year, and earned Talos (which performs live as a six-piece) a sold-out release tour along with festival appearances everywhere from Electric Picnic to Airwaves.
Now, as French prepares a deluxe reissue of Wild Alee complete with a four-track bonus EP titled Then There Was War, it's difficult to overstate just how unlikely all of this seemed only a few years ago. Back then, French was readying himself for a new life in America when unexpected personal challenges suddenly conspired to ground him just weeks before his planned departure. Instead of stepping on a plane, he found himself sitting at home with no hope and no prospects. Writing music became a form of escape, an opportunity to leave his circumstances behind and create his own world right where he was.
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