Have you ever imagined Peter Bjorn & John fronting an amalgamated Mary Onettes and Caesars at a Killers-themed party on the set of Miami Vice? No? Oh. Well, you don’t need to anyway because Pelicandy have this totally covered.
A ‘Young Folks’-esque languid vocal melody glides gracefully over synthetic drums filched straight from the best bits of the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack, while arpeggiated guitar and synth washes meld and blend like a perfectly mixed summer Margherita, with all the refreshing coolness and fuzzy mind-warmth completely present and correct. Throw in echoes of Bowie at his most dancefloor-friendly, a dash of The 1975 and the ghost of Prince overseeing it all and ‘In Echoes’ is what comes out of the song-oven. It’s timeless yet fresh, and damn tasty.
Unbelievably, this is the debut single from the London four-piece, who sound so perfectly formed it feels like they’ve been around forever. Little is known about them, but that only serves to add to ‘In Echoes’ ethereal magic – it sounds like it’s been beamed in from another dimension while making complete sense in this one. “I’ve been known / to beat around the bush, I know / you were floating in your lilo / reading magazines”, lilts the opening salvo, diffusing through the aural system and exploding in the brain like a warm, more-ish sonic bath-bomb for the senses.
According to what little is currently known about Pelicandy – and, by the way, what a name! – the band’s primary influences come from their parents’ record collections. This is evident by what’s on offer here, but the art… dare we say genius?… in what In Echoes achieves is taking clear classic pop marker points and wrangling it into something that feels like it could have been written at any given point in the past 30 years. We await the debut LP with great, great anticipation.
