Please excuse the drug references in the following review of Sherpa’s Blues & Oranges. Even without drugs this album is a real trip. A psychedelicatessen of fluid pop melodies, Candy Crush hallucinations, hall-of-mirrors reverberation and twisted synth.
For those yet to hear the singles, which are doing the rounds on the local independent radio stations, I’m happy to tell you that Blues & Oranges is not an extension of Lesser Flamingo; it’s an expansion of the unique Sherpa sound. The psychedelic circus that was Lesser Flamingo is now housed in a crystal cave in the sky.
While Blues & Oranges is more accessible electro pop than Lesser Flamingo, the eccentric tangential breakdowns and the psychedelic infusion remain. Miyunhey is what Neil Diamond sounds like being snorted by a clown, Quit Time is like Frank Sinatra on shrooms, and when the arpeggiating Cube melts a couple of beats a minute it’s like Jimi Hendrix on salvia.
This is the New New Zealand sound on LSD.
Blues & Oranges is available now, in digital or vinyl form, from the Sherpa Bandcamp (http://sherpa.bandcamp.com/album/blues-oranges).
With their previous release ‘Pretty Cool Optical Illusions’ earning them a Groove Guide album of the week, two number ones on the bFM Top Ten, a Roundhead Studios Live In Session, opening slots for The Clean, Darwin Deez, Real Estate and a noteworthy performance at this years Auckland Laneway Festival, Sherpa are set to paint 2012 in a psychedelic haze with the release of their anticipated debut album - ‘Lesser Flamingo’.
‘Lesser Flamingo’ is a 12-track technicolor panorama where “Sweet charming melodies crash into wonderful psychedelic whirls which spin at such velocity” (Cheese On Toast). Self-funded, self-produced and self-released ‘Lesser Flamingo’ is Sherpa-concentrate captured and mixed by the exceptional James Dansey (The Ruby Suns, The Sneaks, Spring Break) and mastered by JJ Golden (Calexico, Devendra Banhart). The lovingly crafted debut single ‘Lunar Bats’ has already reached number one on the bFM Top Ten and is a taste of more turbulent power-pop hits to look forward to on the album.
With the video for the follow up single ‘In Dolphins He Trusts’ premiered on TVNZ U and a forth self-directed music video in the pipelines for ‘Turtles’ you can expect the words “Sherpa” and “Flamingo” to become mainstays in your music vocabulary.