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BAYONNE shares new video ‘Appeals’ and announces UK tour dates!

August 21, 2016

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BAYONNE

– SHARES NEW VIDEO ‘APPEALS’
– ANNOUNCES UK TOUR DATES
– DEBUT ALBUM ‘PRIMITIVES’ DUE NOV 4TH VIA CITY SLANG

With his debut album due out later this year, Texas-based Bayonne, aka Roger Sellers, is sharing a new video for his second single ‘Appeals‘, from the upcoming record.

Having built quite a fan base in his Texan hometown over the past few years, encompassing a sound that compares to the likes of Panda Bear, Tory Y Moi & Caribou, Bayonne is set to release his debut album ‘Primitives’ on November 4th via City Slang.

In the words of Bayonne himself “‘Appeals‘ was one of the first songs I ever composed using a sample cut completely from an older song. The piano loop at the beginning was cut from a song that I recorded when I was about 17. I liked the way the piano sounded, so I wrote a whole new song around that loop.” 

Directed by Zach Stone, the video for Bayonne’s latest single ‘Appeals‘ compliment the musician’s addictive take on electronic pop beautifully. Zach shed some light on the thoughts behind the video when he said “The visuals for ‘Appeals’ were an experiment in creating the illusion of growing crystals using household objects like ziploc bags, cellophane, and plastic trinkets. We shot a lot of real crystals as well, attempting to blur the line between the organic and artificial materials.” 

Watch ‘Appeals (Live Video)’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ6xl6CKITE

Bayonne’s debut, Primitives, is a rich, complex work, the kind with no clear rock parallel. In its winding, maze-like structures are hints of both Steve Reich and Owen Pallett, each instrument working a single melodic pattern over and over and over, as Sellers threads his soft, reedy voice between them.

Sellers’ journey to Bayonne began when he was two years old, situated in front of Eric Clapton Unplugged at his home in Austin, Texas. “I’d just watch it over and over again,” he laughs. “I would get paint cans and bang on them, trying to imitate what I saw in the video. My parents got me a drum set when I was 6 years old and I became obsessed. I wanted to be Phil Collins for so many years as a child. He was my hero. I feel like you can hear that a lot in Primitives, that big drum sound, because so much of the way I play was learned from Phil Collins.” Though Sellers studied classical piano as a child and music theory in college, rather than developing his skill, he found both to be deadening. “It became homework,” he says. “It made me come home and not want to write. That’s not at all how I’d thought about music — it had always been something fun — almost like a kind of therapy. It was an escape, not a chore.”

Instead, Sellers struck out on his own, buying a looper and slowly amassing a stockpile of tiny melodies. “I found out that I could make these songs really spontaneously and have this really good idea without having to get into the studio to capture it right away. Most of these songs came out of me just fucking around, hooking up keyboards and experimenting.” The experiments cohered into music that is beautiful and densely layered. The composition of the individual musical phrases may have been spontaneous, but assembling them to create Primitives was anything but. Instead, Sellers constructed the songs from a collection of loops he’d built up over the course of six years. Some of those patterns were created on stage at his shows, where Sellers threads melodies together in real time, augmenting them with live drums and vocals. Others were written during downtime, improvising at home. Once he had the basic melodies, he had to figure out how they went together, and how to layer them meticulously to make songs that were rich in deep detail but still immediately engaging.

“That’s all of it — emotion,” Sellers says. “I want the music to carry people in some way, and I want them to feel what I’m feeling. I want my music to be an emotive expression.” On PrimitivesBayonne creates music that’s nuanced, layered, complicated and soothing — easy to get lost in, impossible to ignore.

Having previously played shows with Two Door Cinema Club, Caribou, Neon Indian, Chairlift, Thundercat & Battles, Bayonne is set to embark on a run of European tour dates in October.

See Bayonne live: 

October 9 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Upstairs
October 11 – Berlin, DE @ Berghain Kantine
October 14 – Luzern, CH @ Neubad
October 20 – London, UK @ Shacklewell Arms
October 22 – Bristol, UK @ Simple Things

‘Primitives’ artwork:

‘Primitives’ track list:

  1. Intro
  2. Appeals
  3. Spectrolite (video)
  4. Marim
  5. Waves
  6. Steps
  7. Lates
  8. Omar
  9. Living Room (Bonus Track)
  10. Hammond (Bonus Track)
  11. Sincere (Bonus Track)

Links:
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