Outer Battery Records are building quite the musical roster for themselves not just with Swervedriver’s brilliant recent EP The World’s Fair, which was reviewed recently for Ghost Cult, but also the inclusion of Heavy Blanket (with J Mascis), Petyr and finally Obits; best known for featuring the legendary, late, great Rick Froberg (Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes), RIP. Excitingly, there are also live albums from Dinosaur Jr, Om, and OFF! available from the label. Impressive, right?
Speaking of legends, Nord Electric is certainly not short of them, what with the likes of Mark Gardener of shoegaze giants Ride, Guitarist Giulio Sangirardi Bortolotti (Votiva Lux), and Neil Conti (Prefab Sprout, David Bowie, Mick Jagger) on Drums populating the ranks. The group formed in 2022 and bonded over a love of football (soccer to all you US readers) and music. Resultantly, this saw Gardener guesting on a couple of singles by Votiva Lux, “I Need to Breathe” and “We’re All That We’ll Never Be” both from 2022, eventually leading to where we are now with Nord Electric.
Loneliness For Sale, the trio’s debut EP, opens up with the title track, a song with an eighties Psychedelic Furs New Wave sheen. As with The Furs, this track could easily have landed itself a spot on any number of classic John Hughes movies from that time, including Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, etc. If that era and sound offers up warm fuzzy feelings, then climb aboard for this wonderful opener. “Traces” by comparison is a more muscular-sounding rocker, which thankfully and effortlessly manages to bypass the Britpop disaster of Ride’s then final album Tarantula. The vocals still retain a Shoegaze, dreamy quality, and this contrasts brilliantly to the song’s overall heavier sound. As with their aforementioned Oxford contemporaries, Swervedriver and Ride weren’t afraid of cranking out a bit of noise from time to time and as is beautifully captured here in Gardener’s brand spanking new project. Spectacular.
“When Are You Gonna Wake Up” will make fans of The Smashing Pumpkins sit up and take notice as there is a slight Billy Corgan lilt to the vocals, albeit not as whiny or grating. The music manages to adopt the best elements of nineties Grunge and Alternative Rock such as can be found on The Pumpkins’ Machina/The Machines of God, with faint hints of Electronica peppered in along the way for good measure. Final track “Dagen H” truly blows away all prior expectations of what you would normally associate musically with the members of the band. What you are treated to instead is an adoption of Krautrock (check out the killer motorik style drumming) and Space-Rock flavours on what is, for all intents and purposes, an instrumental, bar some samples that are introduced towards the end of the track. Furthermore, if you enjoy the work of say Spacemen 3, Loop, and Ash Ra Tempel, then you’ll definitely be jamming the hell out of this number. An unexpected yet expansive and not unwelcome conclusion to the record.
The EP, at a mere seventeen minutes long, serves as an ideal primer to the band, and what is hoped for is that many more records will be forthcoming in the future. If you dig Shoegaze but also appreciate it injected with more experimental elements, then this should be on your radar. That said, it should be highlighted that while it’s not as radical or left-field a turn as Slowdive’s Pygmalion, it nonetheless still has enough to offer potential listeners. Props to Gardener and co for forging a highly recommended record well worthy of investigation.
Buy the album here:
https://www.outerbatteryrecords.com/products/nord-electric-featuring-mark-gardener-loneliness-for-sale-ep
8 / 10
REZA MILLS
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