"My self destruction in the guise of my devotion I exist in"
Happy Days! by Glasgow's dark post punk / electro pop outfit The Ninth Wave feels, from the very onset, dark, mysterious and is, even anxiety producing. The percussion and big tom tom fills feel spatially scattered creating tension. When Haydn Park-Patterson's deep resonant vox come in, "let my eyes shut for awhile and there's nothing there" with ghostly backing harmonies, "I miss my bruises and I feel like I am losing my positioning" the images those words create feel bleak and despondent.
The Official Video (with lyrics) produced by the band feels equally dark. Shots that might feel normal in and of themselves feel unsettling next to each other. Maybe people smile much too hard, and clouds move too fast. "My self destruction in the guise of my devotion I exist in" sung with stoic precision, feels sad and somber.
Happy Days! ends up sounding like the straw that breaks the camel's back.
"A danceable and downbeat instant anthems to fucked up romance."
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
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The Glaswegian gothic post-punk and electronic-pop group The Ninth Wave return with the new single “Happy Days!”, the title track from their forthcoming EP, produced by Faris Badwan of The Horrors, and due out July 17th via Distiller Records. Happy Days! upcoming release follows the bands 2019 debut LP Infancy, a record that won them praise from The Guardian who proclaimed them “the most undeniably alive thing we’ve heard” and Noisey who glowingly described their sound as “a brilliant, bleak mixture of 80s rock bands like The Cure and Sonic Youth, but with a synth pop sheen.”
"Happy Days! is a song of ups and downs. At its core, the lyrics shine a torchlight on the murky highs and lows of life. We wanted to make something harsher and more direct than songs we had written before, and this came together relatively quickly. The flow of the song really captures what we were trying to get across with the lyrics: there's a rumbling undertow throughout the whole song, interspersed with ethereal ambient sections and culminating in big nasty crushing beats. We were all agreed that this should be the first song from our new EP to let people hear, and hopefully they're not frightened away.” - Haydn Park-Patterson
The Ninth Wave's lyric video for “Happy Days!” was made by Haydn on miniDV tape and features his granny’s musical ornament that he used to play with when he was a young boy, with the repetitive piano part that runs throughout the song reminding him of the music that comes from the ornament.
“Happy Days!” begins with a rhythmic analogue synth crunching away in the middle distance, soon to be joined by the striking voice of Haydn Park-Patterson. The single is a clear step away from the grandiose sound associated with debut album Infancy, while maintaining a strong melodic core. Stripped down but not stripped back; the songwriting process has been focused on the exercise of restraint. Less is often more. Housed within a bleak and emotive atmosphere, the group bring a strange and surreal world to life. Thumping toms and percussion enforce the energy and narrative of the song, propelling it forward until culminating in an anthemic final chorus.
With the new line-up now featuring Kyalo and Calum -- friends of Haydn and Millie’s from other bands on the Glasgow scene, who share equally in songwriting duties -- The Ninth Wave will open an auspicious new chapter of their story with the release of the Happy Days! EP. Recorded in part at the suitably gothly titled Black Bay studio on the tiny island of Great Bernera in Outer Hebrides of Scotland, produced with Faris Badwan and engineered and mixed by Max Hayes, it’s The Ninth Wave like you’ve never heard them before -- rawer, realer, more playful and revealing.
A danceable and downbeat instant anthems to fucked up romance, Happy Days! (the title is just ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek) finds The Ninth Wave pushing their sound in all sorts of new directions with quicksilver electronic beats, dream-pop soundscapes, larynx-shredding emotional catharsis, harsh noise and rich tonality informed by a love for all from the Twilight Sad to FKA Twigs and Björk.
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