Guitarras preguiçosas, vocais preguiçosos, um leve toque de psicodelia, melodias que grudam, assim são os franceses Strawberry Seas, que recém debutaram com seu primeiro EP, homônimo.
Se houver uma árvore genealógica na qual os caras se encaixem, seria um cruzamento entre Oasis e Pavement, sem os excessos de ambos os lados, apenas música, nada mais, mesmo porque o disquinho flui numa boa vibração, sem afetações maiores.
Uma bela estréia, que merece toda a atenção.
***** Interview with Strawberry Seas *****
Q. When did Strawberry Seas start? Tell us about the history...
Strawberry Seas is a band located in Tours, France (in the Loire Valley – castles and good wine...) The founders are us, Carine and Raphael, and we both sing and play guitars and synths. I (Raphael) played in several rock bands in the last years, and Carine wrote unreleased songs on her own. We decided to put it all together and start the adventure with Romain, a good friend of us on the drums with whom I played in the past, and other live musicians.
Q: Who are your influences?
We had many musical crushes since our teenage years. Our first love (this is how we met each other) was for american indie rock of the 90's with bands like Nirvana, The Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr or Smashing Pumpkins, and next Pavement and Sparklehorse. We also like shoegaze bands in general, Britpop, Psychedelia, and also 60's pop and folk.
Q. Make a list of 5 albuns of all time…
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Nirvana - In Utero
The Beatles - Revolver
Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Q. How do you feel playing live?
Strawberry Seas didn't play live yet, the first EP has just been released. We are only starting to rehearse with live musicians, so the live show will be a real discovery, even for us. We are excited to see how the songs will sound live.
Q. How do you describe Strawberry Seas sounds?
We are always according a lot of importance on songwriting. The melody comes first, before lyrics or ambience. So, we are not attached to one particular sound, the song can change halfway to another direction which we didn't planned originally. It goes with the variety of our influences. A song can have a dreamy shoegaze basis, and others can start with a laid-back slacker guitar riff. We build everything around a melody and it always ends into a pop song. We're still exploring the many directions we can go. It can be captivating, but sometimes we can get lost.
Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
The entire EP has been recorded in our home studio (our living room). We played all the instruments except the drums, which were made by our friend Romain. It had an importance on the process of creating the songs, because our songs can change a lot when we start to record and to arrange it.
Some songs can be created individually by one of us and then we put it together, and the other one can bring a particular ambience, an other part or a different chord, that will make the difference and make the song less previsible. But most of the songs were made together, starting with a chord progression on guitar or keyboard which inspired a vocal melody. We are complementary in the way that we see what can be great in the other's work. A simple riff played naively can waken the other's inspiration. Living together under the same roof make this process easy, and it's even easier because we grew up together making our musical culture.
Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
There is a lot of present artists we love, such as Pond, Ultimate Painting, Bill Ryder-Jones or Kevin Morby. We also recommand you a great french band called The Liminanas. They play a retro-sixties psychedelic pop adding a french color to it. Their reputation grows a lot (Anton Newcombe of BJM loves them). There is also a new band from Paris called Bryan's Magic Tears who released an EP recently that we loved.
Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
Maybe a shoegaze version of Crosby Still Nash and Young, or a Blur cover band with the lyrics of Oasis...
Q: What are your plans for the future?
Build a band for playing live, playing venues and keep writing the best songs we can.
Q: Any parting words?
Stay creative:)
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Thanks
https://strawberryseas.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.facebook.com/StrawberrySeasBand/
