Holy 2005! The Creem are a new band formed by Islands/Unicorns‘ Nick Thorburn and Ratatat‘s Mike Stroud. They’ll drop their debut album, A Taste of Cherry, on June 5.
Fans of both acts will detect traces of Islands and Ratatat in their glam-pop sound but before you utter “indie sleaze,” the two songs available to listen to now have a distinctive mid-’70s smear of Vaseline on the lens and not so much the mid-’00s. “Goodbye” could’ve been on Paul McCartney’s solo debut, while “A Taste of Cherry” takes the glitter and goes widescreen.
“We wrote and recorded this song in one sitting,” Thorburn says of “Goodbye.” “After finishing, we realized we had something special. We’d taken two very different approaches to songwriting and pushed each to the point where neither felt recognizable anymore. There’s an evocation to the timeless music that came before us without having us resort to cheap nostalgia.”
Listen to both songs below.
No word on live shows just yet. Stay tuned.
Islands have a cameo in awesome new indie film Mile End Kicks that’s set against the Montreal music scene of the late-’00s.
Taste of Cherry
1. Goodbye
2. Goldmine
3. Hard to Pretend
4. Paraphernalia
5. Augur
6. Country Home
7. Taste of Cherry
8. Never Hear the End of It
9. Rushing
10. Circles