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The Somnambulants, Somnambulants Paper TrailDetails
Title: Paper Trail
Release date: 21 August, 2007
Record label: Clairaudience Collective Records
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The Somnambulants - Paper Trail
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“Clearly the result of a long-time love of electronic music, the album sounds like a “best of” compilation of your own electronica collection from alternate universe...echoes of vintage New Order, Aphex Twin and Portishead – FreeWilliamsburg.com. If you think you recognize the electro-pop of The Somnambulants, you're not mistaken: the title track of their last record was featured on last year's Half Nelson soundtrack. The band's heavily cinematic yet energetic and dance-friendly sound, laden with lyrical imagery and complimented by spacious production, returns here on their third release, Paper Trail. The Brooklyn-born and now San Francisco-based duo has toured with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Tracy & The Plastics, Au Revoir Simone and Asobi Seksu, but pride themselves on a more rock, blues and pop influenced electronic music than their contemporaries. Far from delivering a set of sleepwalkers, Paper Trail boasts a mix of songwriting styles all wrapped in a single synthetic wrapper, with each track as unique and memorable as the next.
biography
The Somnambulants are:
Joseph White: Bass, vocals, synths, programming
Channing Sargent: Synth, vocals
Contrary to their title, The Somnambulants are anything but sleepy. They have been making an energetic, dance-friendly, and unique brand of indie/electro-pop since 2000. While recording Paper Trail, the girl/boy duo kept to their own rule: avoid writing of “electro” songs. With one or two exceptions, they worked with rock, blues, or pop compositions and arranged them using electronic instruments. The resulting album is a mix of songwriting styles wrapped in a single synthetic wrapper, with each track as unique and memorable as the next. The Somnambulants “are more indie-pop-influenced than most of their contemporaries, and that, I think, is a good thing.” (Village Voice)
Stylistically, The Somnambulants are even more driven by cinematic influence, as evidenced in their lyrical imagery and spacious production. Joseph White built the first Somnambulants songs from music soundtrack pieces composed during his tenure as a film student. In fact, their name was taken from the somnambulist character – Cesare - in the 1920 German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It’s fitting, therefore, that the title track from their previous album, Evacuation, appeared in the soundtrack for the Oscar-nominated film Half Nelson (Lakeshore Records).
Joseph White acts as producer, lead singer, and bass player. The duo’s second half is keyboardist & singer Channing Sargent. “If you've seen the Somnambulants perform, no doubt you've walked away charmed by (and maybe a little smitten with) the onstage relationship between White and Channing Sargent” (Jersey Independent Music/NJ.com). Together, they’ve shared bills with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Tracy & the Plastics, Dirty on Purpose, Au Revoir Simone, My Favorite, Asobi Seksu, My Robot Friend, and other up-and-coming indie bands.
Founded in Brooklyn, NYC, The Somnambulants are now based in San Francisco.
Paper Trail, their third album, will be released on August 21, 2007.
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