Mode Moderne: Strange Bruises
Album release: Strange Bruises by Mode Moderne
Release date: September 3 2012
Label: Light Organ Records
Listen: http://modemoderne.bandcamp.com/album/strange-bruises
"Particularly shadowy…" – Pitchfork Best New Music
"A classic blend of beauty and darkness" - This Is Fake DIY
"Pulsing drum machines, swathy synthesizers, ethereal guitar leads, and blankets of ambient-satin. Let’s welcome the new age." - Weird Canada
Canada’s Mode Moderne have a penchant for all things dark and gloomy, but that doesn’t get in the way of their quest for the perfect pop song. They formed in late 2008, when Clint Lofkrantz approached Felix Fung with plans to start a dance-oriented project. Teaming up with singer Phillip Intilé, the musicians spent the bleak winter months holed up in studio, listening to records and bonding over their love of classic indie and mope-pop.
They wrote and recorded at a prolific song-a-day pace, turning Lofkrantz's scratchy mobile phone demos into sweeping, synth-laden studio epics. The songs were further brought to life with help from Intilé's sonorous vocals and brooding, image-rich lyrics. Drawing on the auteurism of Herzog, the prose of Knut Hamsun and the legend of Scott Walker, his words blended the autobiographical with the imagined.
They self-released their acclaimed debut Ghost Emerging on vinyl in 2009 and as their reputation grew, they signed to Vancouver’s Light Organ Records, who released new material from the band in the form of the 7” single Real Goths / Undiscovered Country in 2011. This led to further attention from the likes of Pitchfork and live dates with the likes of Blouse, Fresh and Onlys and Raveonettes.
Strange Bruises is a follow-up to the first full-length, featuring 7 tracks of ethereal and atmospheric indie, evoking a goth-er Psychdelic Furs or a jangly-er Echo & The Bunnymen and the more current reference points of Primary Colours-era The Horrors, Crystal Stilts and Wild Nothing.
What sets Mode Moderne apart from the pack is the strength of their songwriting. Both Foul Weather Fare and the cyclical suss of the title track measure up equal part misery to equal part joyous melody, wheras Private Library and Electrocute Me in turn feature memorable, pitch black ruminations from Intile.
Their first UK release, Strange Bruises is always as elegant as it is elegiac, always as tuneful as it is mournful, and a fine introduction to an act who are fast becoming an institution in their home country.
Track list:
1. Nightly Youths
2. Foul Weather Fare
3. Strange Bruises
4. Guns
5. Private Library
6. Electrocute Me
7. Open Air
More information
For more information about Mode Moderne or to request a review copy, just contact us today.
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