“I like to describe us as musical hypoalgesia because it’s silly and throw away, but kinda of a pretty idea too.” Steven Kane is talking about his band, Happy Particles, a talented sextet of musicians from Glasgow, who have just released their debut album, Under Sleeping Waves.
The band originally formed around Kane, who says:
“I had written a few songs, and basically asked people I was already in a band with to join, I also asked people who were in bands in Glasgow I liked. Pretty simple really, or pretty lucky to be more accurate.”
It wasn’t luck, but genuine talent and a shared interest and admiration that brought the Particles together - Alan Doherty - guitar, bass; Ricky Egan - guitar; James Swineburn - saxophone, rhodes piano; Gordon Farquhar - drums, percussion; Graeme Ronald - bass; and Steven Kane - guitar, vocals, laptop, piano.
Happy Particles are like a mini-supergroup with each member having a successful career with other bands: Doherty is with Prayer Rug, Egan is in Tangles, Farquhar with Stapleton, while Kane, Swineburn and Ronald are with with Remember Remember.
“As I say, it’s all connections through admiration of each others’ work. We are all pretty geeky and silly really, it just seemed pretty easy to play together.”
For a debut, Under Sleeping Waves is an stunningly assured and goosebumpingly good album.
“We recorded it with our friend Robin Sutherland in a converted barn in Dundee, and it was mastered by Ian Cook (Aereogramme/Unwinding Hours). It has various influences running through it from classical to shoe-gaze to slow-core guitar rock.
“Some tracks were almost finished before being brought to the band while others were written while jamming and others during the recording process itself. It’s a pretty varied record musically and this has probably got something to do with the fact it was all written and pieced together quite collage-like in some respects.
“Some of the tracks were written specifically to be as minimal as possible, trying to ring out as much from simple melodies as we could without it being boring.
“Some were written and then string arrangements were later done by James and Graeme individually, specifically to be more textured/complex. Lyrically I like to deal with abstractions that can also be personal to more people than just myself rather than beating someone with an obvious statement over the head.”
The subtlety and shimmering texture of tracks, such as “Aerials”, “Infinite Jet”, “Slowness” and “Classes in Silence”, makes Under Sleeping Waves the wish list album of the Christmas season and confirms my belief that the Happy Particles are destined for great things in 2012.
Under Sleeping Waves is available as a pre-order on bandcamp now - with an immediate download of two tracks. The album will be officially released on Christmas Day.
‘Aerials’ - Happy Particles
Previously on Dangerous Minds