We Speak Music
Phonseca release highly anticipated sophomore album ‘Everything Lasts Forever’ and joyous new electro-pop single ‘English Night’!
Five years after their debut album ‘Between A Dream’, Bristol synthpop duo Phonseca return with ‘Everything Lasts Forever’, an album that sparkles and shimmers.
‘Between A Dream’ was championed in the UK on BBC Radio 6 Music by both Gideon Coe and Steve Lamacq. With Steve Lamacq featuring it in his “Recommends” show. It also picked up lots of airplay and excellent reviews around the world. ‘Everything Lasts Forever’ is a joyous, upbeat record which picks up where ‘Between A Dream’ left off and unashamedly embraces more of a synth pop feel than its acclaimed predecessor.
Phonseca brings together Bristol’s much respected keys/synth player Matthew O’Connor and radiant Swedish vocalist Kristina Sheppard. Matthew’s classical piano training has an influence on his work. In addition to Phonseca, he has composed Library Music where his work has been synched on primetime TV like BBC1’s – The One Show, Channel 5 programs and National TV in most of Europe. This was the catalyst for first writing with Kristina, initially working on songs for a Disney project which followed a chance meeting at a wedding fayre, where they had stalls directly opposite each other. Since its release, the pair have spent the past few years promoting the debut album while writing/recording ‘Everything Lasts Forever’, which is now ready for release via Old Bad Habits Label.
‘Everything Lasts Forever’ happily takes its inspiration from the likes of New Order, The Beloved, Chromatics, The xx, Robyn, Pet Shop Boys and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The range of Kristina’s voice perfectly captures the variety of feelings that the lyrics portray. Putting herself at the centre of songs which cover Love, Grief, Clubbing and Internationalism. Also included is their take, on timeless pop classic Downtown.
In addition to the vocal tracks, there are a number of ambient/soundtrack inspired instrumentals, completing a varied yet balanced album of effervescent, nocturnal and emotive pop music. The album ends with the poignant, solo piano track ‘Our Star’, allowing you to pause, and reflect on things.
On the album, O’Connor states, “I realised recently that almost all of these tunes have a nocturnal element to them in one form or another. There is definitely a thread of pure optimism too, even in their bleakest moments, running through them and they lend the album its title. Everything Lasts Forever, comes from the theory that when something dies, it doesn’t end there, it’s atoms and energy carry on, long after, until the stars go out.”
Alongisde the album release, Phonseca also release new single ‘English Night’ today with an accompanying video. ‘English Night’ is a joyous upbeat electro-pop track that is laced with positive synth moods and soaring uplifting vocals.
On ‘English Night’, O’Connor states, “English Night is the most optimistic song we’ve ever written. It is Bizarre Inc meets Sophie Ellis Bexter with a dash of St Etienne. I’ve always wanted to pay some kind of homage to clubland as it has inspired me so much over the years. The middle section is my favourite part of the entire album, a real hands in the air moment. I can still recall the exact moment Kristina came up with it, jaw dropping, it gets me every time.”
‘What’s Next?’, the sophomore album from Danish artist NP York, is a dreamy indie-rock record that reflects on lost youth and the places, people, and versions of ourselves that we leave behind as we grow older.
Written in the aftermath of a severe period of depression and as somewhat an outsider of Copenhagen’s music scenes, ‘What’s Next?’ is an album about the strange distance that develops between who we were and who we’re becoming. Across the record’s 10 tracks, NP York turns that distance into melancholic, guitar-driven songs about aging, memory, friendship, ambition, and the quiet realization that youth is something you can never quite return to.
Rather than treating growing older as a simple loss, ‘What’s Next?’ lives in the tension between grief and acceptance as it moves between existential reflections and epic moments of blissful uplift. There’s the paradox of leaping headfirst into new love when you know the cost of failed romance in ‘As Bold As A Heart’, there’s revisiting late teenage night drives and old friendships in ‘One More Day’ and there’s the effervescent gem ‘Trier’, which deals with holding on, waiting for answers and persevering.
Musically, ‘What’s Next?’ draws from the emotional immediacy of indie rock, balancing chiming guitars and restless rhythms with expansive poignancy. NP York’s rich baritone vocals anchor down lyrics that combine a poet’s ear for emotion with a humourist’s wit as he ironically muses on childhood dreams and expectations from the reality of becoming a man in his mid-30s and the absurdities and chaos of the world around him.
The result is a record that feels nostalgic without becoming sentimental, a collection of songs less interested in preserving the past than in understanding why we miss it. As the wild and exuberant yearning for youth in tracks like ‘LIE!’ and ‘As Bold As A Heart’ turn to maturity in more mellow tracks like ‘Let’s Talk’ and ‘Better Place’, ‘What’s Next?’ becomes about a past that has shaped us and the moment we realize we have outgrown it. It asks what happens when places that once felt like home become a memory, when old friends begin living different lives, and when the future starts to feel less like an open road and more like something that requires choosing.
‘What’s Next?’ follows NP York’s 2024 debut album ‘Music for Fools’, which was a sumptuous intimate singer-songwriter affair of personal catharsis featuring graceful string arrangements by Who Killed Bambi, alongside subdued pianos and raw guitars. Backed again by his band of musician friends ‘The Fools’ and recorded live with producers Kaspar Kaae and Asger Techau (David Bowie, Lou Reed and Tony Visconti) at the helm, there seems to be more letting go, nerve and release in ‘What’s Next?’, as the apathy of feeling lost in the world, makes way for the optimism of new love, a revived sense of creativity and the constant urge to explore and the question: WHAT’S NEXT?.
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