Band Of The Week #0080 - Pocket Sun
This week’s Band of the Week is Bristol based Pocket Sun, who are due to release their five track EP ‘Sleep Inventions’ next week on the 24th May. The EP is an amazing piece of technicolor fueled pop that has a feel good vibe. We had a chat with the band about the release.
The EP is called ‘Sleep Inventions’, what is the inspiration behind the title?
On the surface, ‘Sleep Inventions’ could simply be an alternative name for dreams. And in a way the songs are like dreams themselves because they are gatherings of physical and emotional inputs and experiences, manifested into melodies and chords.
The songs on the EP feel a bit like a tangled web of feelings - happy, sad and everything in-between, which have somehow been processed and analysed into something real. It can be difficult to package songs together into an EP or album because they are never all going to fit perfectly, however these particular tracks seemed to fall into place because of their shared imaginative night-time themes.
Where was the album recorded?
Everything was actually recorded in my home studio over a number of months, or years even. I’ve lived in quite a few different places whilst working on them - maybe this has affected how they turned out! Due to my indecisive nature some of the songs went through (too many) re-writes, and in fact a couple of the tracks got swapped along the way. So it was very long, drawn out journey and it’s incredibly freeing to finally have it out of my hands and away into the world!
Any behind the scenes stories?
In the recording process, I wish there were but sadly there’s nothing that exciting really. Picture me sat at my computer from morning til night, working on what felt like a never-ending puzzle.
In terms of stories that inspired the music, I think it’s better to stay mysterious and leave that up to the listener to unravel.
How does the songwriting process work for the band? Does an idea start together or separately?
So far I’ve been writing the music and bringing demos to the band for us to play live. This seems to work well for us as everyone has their other projects too so we haven’t had a lot of time to write together yet. But it’s probably my favourite part when the songs spark to life as everyone interprets and adds their personal magic, especially from Alex on drums and Beau on the bass.
If you could describe your sound in one sentence, what would it be?
‘Hyper-melodic cosmic soul’ seems to sum it up quite tidily…as well as confuse people apparently!
On the other end of the spectrum, Madeleina once described the music to our friends as ‘nice times', which I love!
Now the EP is out there, what next? What are you plans?
So many plans. We’ll be focusing on live shows for a little while, with some festivals and local events over the summer. We have a show coming up next week on 22nd May supporting ALASKALASKA at Rough Trade in Bristol - looking forward to that one!
In terms of releases, there are talks of working with an amazing producer on something new, which is all very, very exciting.
And amongst all of that there’ll be some live videos and more ridiculous animations to appear in the near future too!
Pocket Sun's next UK show is supporting Alaskalaska @ Rough Trade Bristol on Wednesday, 22nd May. Their EP ‘Sleep Inventions’ is due out the 24th May 2019.