"Your fluorescent mind bleeds into my mind / I can see the city lights, but can I see the city lights?"
"Nightvisions" by the Phoenix psych art pop outfit, The Technicolors, slaps you in the face and contorts your body with deep synth and organic grooves, smashed beats and a vocal aesthetic that feel early 80's experimental. Almost immediately the song gives away funk pop and disco tones and, there is a constant shiny patina, undercurrents of 70's glam peaking in too. Comparisons are difficult but there is a definite indie obtuse rock embrace of artists like Rey Pila, Blurr, Talking Heads and then surprising shape shifts into the melancholic art house rock mirages of artists like Radiohead and Boards of Canada. That tonal shift in particular (to me) elevates the soundscape here.
Discussing the idea behind “Nightvisions,” vocalist and guitarist Brennan Smiley shares:
"We had just returned from being on tour in Brazil, where Austin [Scates] and I had extended our trip after the shows to stay on a farm with some friends. We all ended up back in the studio two days after returning to Arizona, in hopes of capturing some of that dynamic shift between a place so vibrant and unfamiliar and the desert, where we all grew up and that sensation of being on your toes is often hard to come by.
"We had just returned from being on tour in Brazil, where Austin [Scates] and I had extended our trip after the shows to stay on a farm with some friends. We all ended up back in the studio two days after returning to Arizona, in hopes of capturing some of that dynamic shift between a place so vibrant and unfamiliar and the desert, where we all grew up and that sensation of being on your toes is often hard to come by.
The song is sort of a cacophony of synthetic city lights and moonlit escapism and it definitely tells more of a story than originally intended, which seems to be a common theme. Wrote that one from scratch in the studio in a day after a sort of panic-failure of two different songs not working and all of us feeling pretty ‘stuck’. Sean had the riff - as soon as he started playing Scates sat down at the drums, started hitting this metal stool next to the kit as a part of the groove, Nico came in with his part, Bob rolled tape and it all went from there. It’s too bad we hadn’t been fighting before it all happened because the whole thing felt like a terrible outtake from ‘That Thing You Do’ or something."
The Technicolors have an artistic vibrancy infused with iconic sounds of the past but distilled in such original ways. The forthcoming album, "Cinema Sublimina", will be available worldwide on October 22nd of this year.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.thetechnicolors.com/
https://twitter.com/TheTechnicolors
https://www.facebook.com/thetechnicolorsmusic
https://www.instagram.com/thetechnicolors/
https://www.youtube.com/thetechnicolors
Since introducing themselves in 2012, Arizona’s The Technicolors have woven a luminous sonic tapestry of fuzz-fueled riffs existing somewhere between the gloomy echoes of 90's Britpop and the snake-charmed stars of the Sonoran desert. The band's vast and diverse catalog is highlighted by a slew of critically-praised singles, including: “Space Cadet,” “Tonight You Are Mine,” “Neon Roses,” and “Songbird.”
The Technicolors has been fortunate to share the stage with an impressive roster of genre-spanning artists including Matt Maeson, The Maine, Turnover, The Wrecks and Psychedelic Furs.
The forthcoming album, Cinema Sublimina, will be available worldwide on October 22nd of this year.
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