SURF NOIR

« every elided syllable glistens under light » – PITCHFORK

“this tantalizing teaser promises good things to those who wait” – NME

« a tour de force of progressive rhythms and sweet melodies » – THE LINE OF BEST FIT

« impressive instrumental and compositional range » – THE GUARDIAN

 

Beat Connection, the debut signings to Moshi Moshi imprint Tender Age, release Surf Noir on April 11^th.   A mini-album featuring eight songs, Surf Noir expands on the palette of fantasy pop revealed on the single Silver Screen.

 

Sunburn kicks off proceedings with sun-baked psychedelic guitar melodies over a shifty beat, invoking summertime nostalgia; In The Water with its samples of seagulls and clapping beats, quickly dissolves into a tropical dance party with layers of washed-out vocals and steel drums; Theme From Yours Trulyoriginally sampled Beyonce and Kelis but given the nightmare of licensing said samples was carefully re-recorded for this release; and Silver Screen with its Afro-pop bounce, smooth vocals and understated genius are just four of the pop gems featured here.

 

The duo of Jordan Koplowitz and Reed Juenger met in summer 2008 in that first youthful flush of  “hey wait, I don’t live with my parents anymore…”and began making some late-summer-appropriate house beats in Garageband.

 

Studying avant-garde composition and working at a local radio station, Juenger realized that melody, verses and choruses exist in pop music for a reason: high-brow-experimental-self-referential-sound-sculpture was no way to get the ladies. So years passed, and they moved on from Garageband, started DJ-ing; things went full circle, their tastes changed, they started writing more music, paid some bills with DJ fees and bought some better equipment.

 

By the summer of 2010, aided by friends and lovers, including featured vocalist Tom Eddy, Koplowitz and Juenger were sweating it out in an attic studio, walls coated in soundproofing lifted from a college radio station. Tracks were refined and polished, friends were dragged in to listen over and over again to tiny segments of music that wouldn’t make the cut.  They had a few epiphanies: realizing that the flow of an album really enhances each song, they applied the knowledge they had gleaned from the dancefloor. They borrowed some nostalgia. During this time, Surf Noir transformed from a labour of love into an essential soundtrack reflecting the anticipation for the summer months when everyone cuts loose.

 

Beat Connection summon up the mundane things in life, the things that we pretend don’t matter but the stuff that keeps everyone going; the first sunny day, getting the girl, slacking off, partying… things that are overly romanticized in movies.  This is an absolute indulgence, because the world is an incoherent jumble of perception, and we all pass on eventually.  So in that spirit of cutting loose, let’s have a good time and not worry too much: Saturday night always becomes Sunday morning.

 

 

 

 

Introducing… Beat Connection

In summer of 2008 – during that first flush of youthful « holy shit I don’t live with my parents anymore…” – Jordan Koplowitz met Reed Juenger and they began making some next level beats in Garageband,

 

Reed – born in Massachusetts – had moved to Seattle with the half-baked notion of escaping the town he went to high school in.  Jordan had grown up in a Seattle satellite town Bellingham, a place best known for its snowboarding, outdoors, hippies and excellent marijuana.  Between school classes and parties, instrumental tracks with vague references to M83 and Crystal Castles began to emerge.

 

Studying avant-garde composition and working at a local Radio station, Reed realized that melody, verses and choruses exist in pop music for a reason; only intellectual fucks like high-brow-experimental-self-referential-sound-sculpture and that is no way to get the ladies.  So they moved on from Garageband, started DJ-ing; things went full circle, their tastes changed, they started writing more music, paid some bills with DJ fees and bought some better equipment.

 

By the summer of 2010, aided by friends and lovers, including featured vocalist Tom Eddy, Jordan and Reed were sweating it out in an attic studio, walls coated in soundproofing lifted from a college radio station.  Tracks were refined and polished, their shit jobs lamented, friends were dragged in to listen over and over again to tiny segments of music that wouldn’t make the cut.  They had a few epiphanies.  Realizing that the flow of an album really enhances each song, they applied their knowledge from the dancefloor.  They borrowed some nostalgia.  They made Surf Noir.  It was a labor of love reflecting the wait for the summer months when everyone cuts loose.

 

Beat Connection summon up the mundane things in life, the things that we pretend don’t matter but the stuff that keeps everyone going; the first sunny day, getting the girl, slacking off, partying… things that are overly romanticized in movies.  This is absolute indulgence, because the world is an incoherent jumble of perception and we all pass on eventually.  So let’s have a good time and not worry too much, Saturday night always becomes Sunday morning.

 

* Beat Connection’s debut single Silver Screen is released February 28^th, on Tender Age (a Moshi Moshi label)

* Debut mini-album is released in spring 2011.  

 

Notes on the record, according to Beat Connection:

In the Water – “Recorded secretly in the basement of a sorority, late at night, we were eventually found out and asked politely ‘Who the hell are you and like what the hell are you doing.  This music is like hella annoying and shit’.”

Silver Screen –  “About romanticized evenings that can only happen in teenage B-movies.  But when life imitates art, it’s almost like a dream.  One love to Tom Eddy for sharing his amazing voice with us.”

Wildheart  – Reed, “composed and performed live with the aid of a complicated computer algorithm that used selective phase inversion and tempo shifting to create the eventual texture, you wouldn’t understand.” Jordan, “we just took one of our b-sides and slowed it down.”

Motorsport and Same Damn Time – “recorded in a sweltering apartment before we got our secret attic studio.  That’s Reed and Jordan trading off verses on the microkorg vocoder.”