We Speak Music
HIGHWAYVES deal with escapism with intense alt-rock whirlwind ‘Evie’!
HIGHWAYVES (HWYVES) are from the North West and have honed a sound that races from spacious to suffocating, combining the dark aggression of grunge with dreamlike swathes of shoegaze. Each piece punctuated with intimate, poetic lyricism that feel both personal yet incredibly universal. HIGHWAYVES are unashamedly earnest, laying bare their deepest emotions for all to join in a form of collective catharsis.
HIGHWAYVES take an obsessive approach to their art; writing, recording, and producing their own music as well as writing, directing and editing their videos. Their uncompromising approach is the key to creating an unassailable connection with their audience.
New HIGHWAYVES single “EVIE” is a slick, fuzzed-up track that soars to epic heights. A tidal wave of gritty emotion and effervescent guitars, it’s impossible not to get swept up in the track’s chorus as it twists and turns through its verses of underbelly episodes which conjure 90s nostalgia shot through to full raw power into a highly charged energy that lifts the track through to an intense whirlwind of scream-a-long anthem levels.
On the darker tones underpinning the track, HIGHWAYVES lead singer & lyricist Brad explains; “EVIE’ is heavily based on people I knew growing up who turned to drugs as a form of escapism. It’s endemic for young people where I grew up to feel a sense of entrapment and stagnation when they hit their late teens/early 20s. This is especially true if you’re drawn to city life and have a desire to be in a place where things happen. A lot of the time this manifests itself in a way that makes these kids do everything they can when they get an opportunity, whether that be drugs, sex… whatever.”
He continues, “Most people come out the other side more or less unscathed. But some people really fuck up their lives. I’ve been really close to people who have gone far down that road, it can get really really dark. Luckily those people close to me came back around and have gone on to lead great lives, but a lot never get that chance. It can happen to anyone and often it’s people you would never expect, people on the surface level who have a life that people would kill to have”.
“EVIE” wasn’t written to make a political point or say HIGHWAYVES have an answer to the issues that Brad has seen growing up. It’s not to criticise the people who this happens to, and it’s certainly not to romanticise the lifestyle but the track is here to shine a light on it and say, “Look, this is happening. We can’t deny that it’s happening, and it can happen to anyone.”
HIGHWAYVES will be heading on tour in the UK in 2024 and setting their sights further afield soon after. “EVIE” is the latest piece that will ultimately culminate in an album-length body of work in 2024.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
-
We Speak Music1 week agoMemory Spells Unleashes An Album That Glows With Human Connection
-
We Speak Music6 days agoPaul Archer Unleashes New Single ‘No Fear’
-
We Speak Music1 week ago
They Might Be Giants release video for Raspberries cover ‘Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)’
-
We Speak Music1 week ago
Christian Balvig offers up stunning first taster of new album in collaboration with Ensemble Hermes