Sunny Day Sets Fire 'Summer Palace' album

The latest UK based indie pop group to watch out for, Sunny Day Sets Fire, will be playing select U.S. dates next week surrounding the premiere party for the Paramount Pictures documentary American Teen. While IAmSound previously released a remix EP featuring formidable artists such as CSS, XXXChange from Spank Rock, The Cool Kids, and Mad Decent/Diplo, the latest talent to join the roster of Sunny Day Sets Fire remixers is Triobelisk, a DJ from Washington, DC. In the new remix Triobelisk has taken Sunny Day Sets Fire’s catchy brandy of 60's psychedelic pop and turned it into a dance-floor worthy banger.

American Teen, a documentary on seniors in an Indiana high school and their various cliques, features songs by Sunny Day Sets Fire which the band will performing at a private launch party as well as select venues and radio appearances around Los Angeles. These will be the band’s only U.S. dates until the fall 2008 CMJ New Music Festival.

Sunny Day Sets Fire will be releasing their debut full length Summer Palace via IAmSound Records on July 8th. Leading up to the release of the record, the group will be seeding out 10 viral videos illustrating sounds and ideas that the album evokes. Pitchfork describes it well by saying, “The album’s title is Summer Palace, but Luke Langsdale adds a lighter, less assuming touch with wintered landscapes and felt hearts to this otherwise warm, easily remixable indie pop treat.”

The second video for “Map of The World” was directed by Hiro Murai, the video is a stunning array of hand and arm shadows that aptly represents the group’s celebration of life through music. Watch as the shadow of a daydreaming man walking through a city street morphs into the shadows of a pastoral landscape. Keep your eyes peeled as other creative videos premiere throughout the web in the coming weeks.

Ostensibly a band founded in London, Sunny Day Sets Fire is a group with many homelands, many talents and many sounds. Collectively, the band hails from Hong Kong, Italy, Sardinia, Canada, and of course, London. The result is something of a pop hybrid where 60’s rock collides with new patents. The quintet’s unique brand of hummable surreal pop is a perfect soundtrack to summertime that could perhaps best be compared to artists like Blonde Redhead, The Flaming Lips, and Architecture In Helsinki. The mid-summer release of Summer Palace will certainly establish Sunny Day Sets Fire as a reference point unto itself. One can only begin to envision the sorts of cakewalks the group will go through after this very promising debut is unleashed on the American masses.

biography
In a swirling event of coincidence and musical attraction, Onyee and Mauro found each other between paychecks and popcorn. Both were ushers at their local repertoire Chelsea cinema in London when they realized their similar palates for bands, artists and sounds exacted a nice beginning for some collaborative efforts. Ideas occurred and the two recruited friends to fulfill orchestral duties. An act was born. Sunny Day Sets Fire dug their toes into the ground, and got pumped for the future comings of their psych-pop band life.

Collectively, the band hails from Hong Kong, Italy, Sardinia, Canada, and of course, London. The result is something of a pop hybrid in the vein of The Beach Boys, The Flaming Lips, Architecture in Helsinki, and Of Montreal. Upbeat 60's beach rock collide with new patents. Catchy melodies spill into astral instrumentation and kaleidoscopic guitar tangents. These tunes are very much alive and optical.

Lead guitarist Max, deriving from Sardinia, says it best: "Our music is the result of the clash of five different backgrounds that in most cases, come out in a very unconscious way. Any input coming out from anyone of us triggers something from the musical and visual imagery of the rest of the band members. [This] adds to initial ideas of the songs and in a way that often transform them into something a bit different."

Evolution knows how to ignite. When Mauro whipped up a set of songs with a mint-fresh direction, Onyee (sporting her talents with back-up vocals, drums, synth and glockenspiel) got motivated and pulled Max from shaking cocktails to play lead guitar. Now things were rolling, now music was being made, gigs were being played, and bands like Sunny Day Sets Fire were really covering ground. A year and a half later, Ed joined on the bass, the band's only London native.

In the summer of 2006, the band signed to American indie label IAMSOUND Records with the four-song Brainless EP released later in the year. In February 26th, 2008, IAMSOUND issued a remix EP featuring CSS, XXXChange from Spank Rock, The Cool Kids and Mad Decent/Diplo. The EP has been wrangling in excitement for Summer Palace, the Sunny Day full-length set for July 8th, 2008. One can only begin to envision the sorts of cakewalks Sunny Day Sets Fire crafted for these upcoming 14 tracks. It's the kind of project you can easily get stoked on.

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Tracklisting

Sunny Day Sets Fire - Summer Palace