The father of Far Western Pop, Hawaiian composer MWBW, is back with his new band based in Southwest France and born out of the ashes of the pandemic, Sparkle Club. With their music like a soundtrack to a dreamy road movie through buzzy Western landscapes and on into the dark blue waters of the Pacific, crossing paths with the Pixies, Boards of Canada, Beck, Kurt Vile or Mac DeMarco, and as gritty and overexposed as a Spaghetti Western or an 8mm surf flick... Sparkle Club released their first EP entitled “Egosynthesis” [western / electro / pop] November 24th 2023 via Fabriq records in Toulouse, France.
A word from front man, MWBW, about the new EP “Egosynthesis”:
“People are gonna ask me, “What or who does this album sound like?” All I can reply with is this: Everybody and no one at the same time with each song sounding different to the next. What can define this album though, more than anything else, is the sound and the sounds. There are Linn drums in an Italo-disco style on the first track and completely different sounding Motown style acoustic drums soaked in springy reverb on the second track, for example. But for me, beyond being eclectic and unconventional, the synthesizers are definitely the thread that ties everything together on this EP. The main synths used are my trusty 1989 Kawai K4, two quirky E-MUs from the early 90s, and a powerful Absynth (soft synth) from the early 2000s.
Also, all the songs have a very visual aspect to them and are colorfully composed with a film soundtrack feel – gritty like a Spaghetti western and old surf flicks that have been slightly over-exposed. And of course, there is my fucked up sleepy voice with a ton of old effects going through it, like a broken down cowboy crooning at the moon after taking an extra dose of morphine for an old rodeo wound back in the day, etc, etc… So, yeah, kind of like a dreamy minimalistic road trip where you change cars in every State, and it’s the same make, but a different model and it doesn’t matter cuz your sunglasses are still dirty and have that big scratch on the left lens…
Oh yeah, another thing that is unique about this album is that we played all the songs LIVE in front of an audience to make sure they worked and feel more confident before recording them in the studio. We feel pretty sure now that when people listen to this little album they’re gonna say, “wow that was a cool little trip.”
Available on all music platforms:
May 31
Show starts at 8PM (free entry)
31 Route de Périgueux, 24100 Lembras, France click for more info
O tracking drums for our next EP
Yep. We are currently recording our next EP (6 tracks) which will hopefully be out either this summer or early Fall. The next EP is going to be more in the style of our Far Western Pop than our first EP; that is to say, a cocktail of western / prog / pop / rock served in an indie style tumbler - on the rocks, of course.
