The Cold Spells ‘Interstitial’ album launch
Wrought from estuary accented lichen, scrabbled from brine and moss, love and loss, wheezing synths and knackered harmoniums; The Cold Spells emerged from the East London/Essex borders five years ago. Their songs are modern laments filtered through electricity and concrete where kitchen-sink psychedelia meets modern day folk, twisting universal and abstruse references. As indebted to the classic pop of the Beatles and Kinks as to the fragmented sound experiments of Broadcast and Arthur Russell, the Cold Spells attempt to make the familiar sound new, and try to prove that there are still ways to get fresh fruit from an old tree.
On their new album, Interstitial, the band have tried to capture a sense of place and poetry through sound on each track. The album as a whole is a collection of vignettes into a time and space where magic is mundane and reality is distorted. Sounds, melodies, harmony and dissonance compliment and clash throughout. Where there’s life there is sound, and there are countless layers of symphony right down to the molecular. In fact, when you focus on space, you start to realise that there is no space at all.
https://thecoldspells.bandcamp.com
An original fan and supporter of The Cold Spells, singing and songwriting Gare du Nord co-founder Robert Rotifer has recently been alternating between fingerpicking minimalism in English and German, long-form psychedelia and his power pop roots, all of which is in evidence on his recent “About Us/They Don’t Love You Back” twin long-player. Rumour has it he might bring along the band for this one.
