Do you like lo-fi pop? Cool! Because I have some good news for you if so. Its purveyors on both sides of the pond – Brooklyn-based label Orchid Tapes and Bristol’s own Art Is Hard – have teamed up to bring you Penrose Winoa, the debut album from Oro Swimming Hour. That’s a lot of information for those among us who may have clicked the link after looking at the press shot and thinking ‘aw, this seems like a nice vibe, maybe I’ll check it out’, so let me break it down for you real quick:
– Art Is Hard are responsible for putting out stuff from some of the UK’s best weird pop artists like Joanna Gruesome, King of Cats and Fear of Men.
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– Oro Swimming Hour is a duo made up of Oliver Wilde and children’s book illustrator Nicholas Stevenson (also of Lucky Shivers). Nice!
– Penrose Winoa was mastered by Orchid Tapes’ Warren Hildebrand who has a knack for elevating what could be small-sounding pop into delicate, spacious masterpieces, as he has famouslydone for the likes of Alex G, Ricky Eat Acid, Elvis Depressedly and his own project, Foxes In Fiction.
Got it? Great! We’re streaming a cut from Penrose Winoa called “Overthrown”, which like all good pop songs, hits pretty much instantly because it has that quality of familiarity that punches its way through any barriers you’ve been keeping up lately and allows you to feel something. So, take a few minutes out of your day to get an earful below before reverting to the default human condition of ‘terrified robot’.
Penrose Winoa will be released on 28 July via Art Is Hard in the UK you can pre-order it here if you like.
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