by Danielle Holian
Happyness’ album Write In will be released April 7 via Moshi Moshi Recordings.
The album features artwork from Jon EE Allan. They recorded parts of the record in the band’s own studio above an abandoned bookshop, they finished the album and mixed with Adam Lasus at his home studio in LA. The album was influenced by the likes of Roxy Music, The Beach Boys, Randy Newman, Sonic Youth, Big Star and Pierre Cavalli.
“I’d like to think this record looks outside the little American alt-rock sphere we were looking in on. I think we used to be very afraid of being earnest. And now we’re able to be tender or heartfelt without feeling too guilty about it. This record cost us about £500 to make, and that was mainly spent on an 8 track tape recorder and a dehumidifier. We self-produced it in our studio [the affectionately named ‘Jelly Boy Studios’, where the band also recorded their debut, ‘Weird Little Birthday’]. The building’s being redeveloped at the end of the year, so this is the last record we’ll make there, which feels like the end of a chapter for us,” Jon says about the direction of the record.
Happyness have released their new single ‘Falling Down’ ahead of the album’s release. ““A friend of ours manages a cinema (shoutout Nyla!) and she gets free use of it every Monday night when the public have left. We showed up at midnight with an old TV and some musical equipment and a vague plan to shoot a Spiegel Im Spiegel effect with the cinema screens. Special credit should probably also go to the coffee machine,” Benji Compston explains about the video.
The band will embark on a UK and Ireland tour in April. “The April tour’s our first UK headline tour for a while now, and for the first time we’ll have two albums to play from so we’re looking forward to it a lot. We’ve got a lot of expensive ideas for stage props that we probably won’t be able to realise by April,” Benji comments.
Written by Danielle Holian (Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook)
The ModernRetro Magazine 