Labels: Gloriette Records
Review by: Andy Malcolm
Ok, this is a touch confusing. Pearl Harbor have changed their name to Puro Instinct, but I don’t really know why. This seems to be the record that lurks on the boundary of that Doctor Who like metamorphosis. Awesome, it’s Tom Baker, hmmm, now it’s Peter Davison. It doesn’t sound much at all like their fantastic 12″ that came out on Mexican Summer, bar some of the vocals. This is electro pop, leaning heavily on the 80s and propped up with utterly dreamy vocals. I was kind of disappointed by it initially, but given a few spins I’ve come to accept it for what it is. Still, they’ve since gone on to record a full length under the new name, and there is a song on it called Stilyagi which blows away anything present on here. These 4 songs are all about tropospheric synths and vocals that are so airy as to barely be present. If you recall that Antarctica LP, this is like some of that, but probably with way more drugs and certainly a lot cooler, given that this is 2 young girls from California rather than some old dude who used to be in an emo band and a bunch of people who went on to do Ova Looven. I really like the aesthetic here, with faux Soviet fonts and faded photographs. This may well be the music that was playing in the bedrooms of stoned Russians whilst the Soviet Union collapsed under Gorbachev. Or something. Probably there weren’t many stoned Russians whilst a coup was going on. Anyway, given time I got into this. I preferred the surfy sounds of the previous album, but this is blissed out and plenty enjoyable in different ways. I enjoyed it especially after 3 pints of beer. Looking forward to hearing what they do on the LP.