About
Eternal Summers will detonate your chill vibe. While you've no doubt spent the hot months absorbing ultraviolets and soaking up beachy sounds, Nicole Yun and Daniel Cundiff have been cutting loose in the back woods, creating their fuzziest, jangliest statement yet: Silver, out on Fall 2010 on Kanine.
The inland duo's music comes out of the forests of Roanoke, VA, where the mountain vistas are inspiring but the scene is mostly cover bands. Both members are a part of the Magic Twig Community, a collective of nine like-minded musicians that cherish boundless creativity and weirdo indie pop. When Yun, who sings and plays guitar, moved to Roanoke, she originally played with another drummer, but when he bailed before a gig, Cundiff jumped in. What resulted was something very, very punk, and Yun and Cundiff knew they had the right musical chemistry. That's when Eternal Summers was born.
Feeling no need to flesh out their lineup, the duo decided to treat the open spaces as an instrument. When they call it dream punk, they're only partially joking. Taut, hooky and often wide-open, their sound is simple but it takes up room. They employ the quietest quiets and the loudest louds-from hazy, clanging reveries to rapid No Wave squalls. They've received adoring write-ups since the release of their self-titled debut EP, available on 10-inch vinyl: Pitchfork called "Lightswitch" a song "you need to hear now" and posted the "also-awesome" "Fall Straight Back." The band has since played with the likes of Harlem, Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Dan Deacon, Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing to name a few. On Silver, Eternal Summers has streamlined and then leaped beyond their original sound.
Where the EP was sun-drenched and simple, Silver is far-reaching and ambitious despite its minimalist drums-and-guitar cast. The album mixes 90-second fist-pumpers and dreamy, six-minute meditations, noisy highs, and uncomfortably quiet hums. Silver captures the energy of their live shows–which has inspired the lead single "Pogo"–and calls to mind early indie legends like the Raincoats, Galaxie 500, Beat Happening, and Unrest.