Back from me hols and the first tune to grab me is this propulsive rush of shoegaze-tinged goodness from Brighton trio CIEL. ‘Back To The Feeling’ has a hint of Stereolab meets Lush about it. That may be due to the fact that I’ve just returned from France, or perhaps that CIEL is French for the heavens (or the sky if you’re feeling less poetic) or maybe it’s because I’m about to read Miki Berenyi’s (of Lush) book “Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success.” Or maybe such references might have a whiff of truth, who knows – but whatever musical touchstones you might want to bandy about ( after all everybody’s ears are different) you’d have to have a malfunctioning taste gene if you didn’t experience some semblance of la joie upon hearing this track. It is, in anybody’s language an absolutely cracking tune. Driving guitars, aggressive drumming and frontwoman Michelle Hindriks’ euphonic vocals all combine to perfection and create a beautifully crafted slice of dream pop.
Hindriks describes the song’s genesis: ‘Back To The Feeling’ started off as quite a spiritual song and was eventually brought back to feeling completely absorbed in the moment, carelessness, staying up late and being young, which is quite down to earth but yet feels like a wholesome, kind of spiritual and hedonistic thing to me now. Whereas this was a thing that would happen to you automatically when you’re younger, nowadays I feel like it can be more of a challenge and I need to work hard to reach a state of mind like that, completely away from my phone and any other distractions. When I wrote the song I felt overwhelmed with an in-the-moment kind of feeling, experiencing deep love for the things and people around me – it gave a brief insight to another way of experiencing life”.
Produced and mixed by Blood Red Shoes Steven Ansell and mastered by Robin Schmidt (The 1975, Wolf Alice, The Black Keys), CIEL’s ‘Back To The Feeling’ is out now and is from their forthcoming EP ‘Not In The Sun, Nor In The Dark’ EP via Jazz Life
CIEL’s live set-up is Michelle Hindriks (vocals, bass), Jorge Bela Jimenez (guitar), Tim Spencer (drums)
CIEL Online
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Live Dates
2nd Oct – Divine Schism 10, Oxford
6th Oct – The Shacklewell Arms, London (EP launch party)
9th Oct – Crofters Rights, Bristol
14th Oct – Wild Paths Festival, Norwich
15th Oct – Live At Leeds
20th Oct – Prince Albert, Brighton
22nd Oct – Bobiks, Newcastle
23rd Oct – Hug & Pint, Glasgow
24th Oct – 33 Oldham Street, Manchester
