The Glaswegian gothic post-punk and electronic-pop group The Ninth Wave have returned with the new single Happy Days!. It’s the title track lifted from their forthcoming EP, produced by Faris Badwan of The Horrors, and is due out July 17th via Distiller Records. ‘Happy Days!’ upcoming release follows the bands 2019 debut LP ‘Infancy,’ a record that won them praise from The Guardian who proclaimed them “the most undeniably alive thing we’ve heard” and Noisey who glowingly described their sound as “a brilliant, bleak mixture of 80s rock bands like The Cure and Sonic Youth, but with a synth pop sheen.”
You can listen to Happy Days! via YouTube below or stream it everywhere at https://orcd.co/hdsingle.
About the single, Haydn Park-Patterson said “Happy Days! is a song of ups and downs. At its core, the lyrics shine a torchlight on the murky highs and lows of life. We wanted to make something harsher and more direct than songs we had written before, and this came together relatively quickly. The flow of the song really captures what we were trying to get across with the lyrics: there’s a rumbling undertow throughout the whole song, interspersed with ethereal ambient sections and culminating in big nasty crushing beats. We were all agreed that this should be the first song from our new EP to let people hear, and hopefully they’re not frightened away.”
Happy Days! begins with a rhythmic analog synth crunching away in the middle distance, soon to be joined by the striking voice of Haydn Park-Patterson. The single is a clear step away from the grandiose sound associated with debut album ‘Infancy,’ while maintaining a strong melodic core. Stripped down but not stripped back; the songwriting process has been focused on the exercise of restraint. Less is often more. Housed within a bleak and emotive atmosphere, the group bring a strange and surreal world to life. Thumping toms and percussion enforce the energy and narrative of the song, propelling it forward until culminating in an anthemic final chorus.
With the new line-up now featuring Kyalo and Calum — friends of Haydn and Millie’s from other bands on the Glasgow scene, who share equally in songwriting duties — The Ninth Wave will open an auspicious new chapter of their story with the release of the ‘Happy Days!‘ EP. Recorded in part at the suitably titled Black Bay studio on the tiny island of Great Bernera in Outer Hebrides of Scotland, produced with Faris Badwan and engineered and mixed by Max Hayes, it’s The Ninth Wave like you’ve never heard them before — rawer, realer, more playful and revealing. A danceable and downbeat instant anthems to fucked up romance, ‘Happy Days!’ (the title is just ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek) finds The Ninth Wave pushing their sound in all sorts of new directions with quicksilver electronic beats, dream-pop soundscapes, larynx-shredding emotional catharsis, harsh noise and rich tonality informed by a love for all from the Twilight Sad to FKA Twigs and Björk.
For more information on The Ninth Wave, visit Theninthwave.online.
