We Speak Music
Palmistry serves up stellar remix of Past Life Romeo’s acclaimed single “Sometimes, Most Nights”
Past Life Romeo is a brand-new alternative pop project, mixing electro, hyperpop and rock. There’s melancholy and a sensuality in the writing and voice of Camila, mixed with the eclectic productions of musician Carlos Loverboy (Spill Tab, Blossoms, Myd…) who co-prouced Past Life Romeo’s first EP, and the garage drums of Jim Casanova (Annie Ada…).
This first Past Life Romeo EP, scheduled for release on 24th May, titled “You Look Just Like Me”, was recorded at Motorbass and offers a mix of analog and digital; a disk that is both organic and intimate. Throughout the EP, we find the influence of Bon Iver and Burial, but also Sega Bodega or even the pop of Lorde.
The EP was mixed by James Rand (Eartheater, Sega Bodega, LSDXOXO…) and evokes introspection and intimate questions on change, self-image, gender and sexuality.
The first single to come from the EP “Sometimes, Most Nights” was released on PIAS on February 14, 2024 to acclaim from Wonderland, Radio France Inter, Tsugi, iHeart and gained features on Apple’s New Music Daily playlist, Inrocks selection of the week, month and year, Têtu selection of the month and more.
“Sometimes, Most Nights” shakes up the codes of the pop song: between verse and chorus, the line is blurred. The song’s temporality is cyclical, representative of what it evokes: a relationship that goes round and round and doesn’t move forward: “We go round and round again”. The track mixes saturated guitars reminiscent of early M83, with hyperpop production elements inspired by SOPHIE and the candid, avant-garde pop of Farrah Abraham.
“Sometimes, Most Nights” has now been remixed by Londonian singer and producer, Palmistry. His remix adds a bold shot of hyperpop, EDM, PC music and dancehall to the song, slightly sped-up, which makes it the perfect party-starter song for this summer, in the club or on a lonely day at home.
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.
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