Music / Premieres
Premiere:
The Marlenes - Advertise on the Moon
The Marlenes - Advertise on the Moon
After almost four years of near silence, Peninsula pop ensemble The Marlenes are back with their second full-length album Advertise on the Moon, a winding journey through 60’s pop, garage-rock and blissful psychedelia that more than makes up for lost time.
Following on from the release of their 2016 debut Crawl Out Your Window, The Marlenes was temporarily put on hold as the group morphed into much-loved rock n rollers Donald Dank and the Naughty Boys. However, after one album and a handful of EPs, last year saw Donald Dank call it quits, providing Michael Procter with the perfect chance to reclaim The Marlenes name, and find a home for the collection of songs he’d been working on during the Naughty Boys years.
Advertise on the Moon is a wild ride through Michael’s kaleidoscopic musical mind. With over 20 tracks - some upbeat and groovy, some dreamily tranquil, others sprawling and wacky - the album finds Michael and his band tackling every idea and style available to them, to create over an hour of warped pop that comes soaked in wide-eyed charm.
Recorded over the past summer, there’s a refreshingly relaxed energy that permeates these songs. Naturally so, as each track was recorded moments after the song was taught to the revolving band, as Michael explains - “it was really just a ‘see what we come up with on the day’, I didn't want us to labour over anything. I just wanted to capture the magic that's there in a demo recording, when a band’s just learnt the song and everything is new and exciting, and everyone’s hanging on by the skin of their teeth.”
Where other bands might tighten up under pressure, the recording clearly caught The Marlenes at their most comfortable, as the entire listen is fluid and completely immersive. From the skittering grooves and playfully sleazy vocals of ‘Back On The Tools’, to the jaunty charisma of the title track, and through to the more free-wheeling explorations that round out the B-side, like the jazzy psychedelia of ‘No Matter How Far’ or ‘Surfing with Keeks’ surf-rock swagger, it’s an album bursting with nugget after nugget of captivating pop whimsy.
There’s a lot on Advertise on the Moon to dig through, but don’t let that alarm you - once you open yourself up to it, you’ll find yourself discovering new things to love on every listen, making the album as fun to nerd out to with headphones as it is enjoyable to pop on in the background while you spend an afternoon in the sun.
Advertise on the Moon is a wild ride through Michael’s kaleidoscopic musical mind. With over 20 tracks - some upbeat and groovy, some dreamily tranquil, others sprawling and wacky - the album finds Michael and his band tackling every idea and style available to them, to create over an hour of warped pop that comes soaked in wide-eyed charm.
Recorded over the past summer, there’s a refreshingly relaxed energy that permeates these songs. Naturally so, as each track was recorded moments after the song was taught to the revolving band, as Michael explains - “it was really just a ‘see what we come up with on the day’, I didn't want us to labour over anything. I just wanted to capture the magic that's there in a demo recording, when a band’s just learnt the song and everything is new and exciting, and everyone’s hanging on by the skin of their teeth.”
Where other bands might tighten up under pressure, the recording clearly caught The Marlenes at their most comfortable, as the entire listen is fluid and completely immersive. From the skittering grooves and playfully sleazy vocals of ‘Back On The Tools’, to the jaunty charisma of the title track, and through to the more free-wheeling explorations that round out the B-side, like the jazzy psychedelia of ‘No Matter How Far’ or ‘Surfing with Keeks’ surf-rock swagger, it’s an album bursting with nugget after nugget of captivating pop whimsy.
There’s a lot on Advertise on the Moon to dig through, but don’t let that alarm you - once you open yourself up to it, you’ll find yourself discovering new things to love on every listen, making the album as fun to nerd out to with headphones as it is enjoyable to pop on in the background while you spend an afternoon in the sun.
Advertise on the Moon is out now through Flying Kipping Records.
