February 08 2008
The Ruby Suns — Sea Lion
posted by Steven Shaw at 8:20 am
The Ruby Suns Sea Lion (Lil’ Chief Records)
Review by David Skipwith
Sea Lion is the second album from Auckland based psych-pop combo The Ruby Suns. Formed in 2004 by expat Californian singer-songwriter Ryan McPhun, a collection of musicians accompanied him in a line-up that “coalesced”, as the press release says, to a three piece now completed by native New Zealanders Amee Robinson and Imogen Taylor.
Superbly blending diverse sounds and music styles, Sea Lion captures an impressive array of instrumentation, noises and recording techniques. Layers of pop driven, psychedelic folk rest amongst the warm traditional sounds of the South Pacific and southern Africa, yet McPhun still manages to find room for 80s synth-pop along with an eclectic collection of samples and surprises.
The Ruby Suns’ 2005 self-titled debut arrived to little fanfare locally, yet drew rave reviews from the UK music press after it was championed by UK indie label Memphis Industries. The attention that followed inspired tours of the UK, USA, New Zealand and Australia and led to an eventual 2007 signing with Sub Pop.
Along the way to the release of Sea Lion the band had their share of misfortune, with the well-documented ‘burning tour van incident’ and the losing of months of carefully gathered and recorded music from a computer hard drive being low points in a career fashioned and embedded with the DIY ethic. McPhun records and produces all their music while Amee creates all their artwork and they proudly remain without management.
Sea Lion’s first single “Kenya Dig It” was a student radio hit while the hypnotic vocals and hand clap percussions of the beautiful “There Are Birds” also earned many accolades. Live these songs sound amazing and more forceful with bombastic beats and rhythms achieving a volume and edge not always heard amongst the easy listening qualities of this atmospheric album. Conversely, the subtleties and complexities of the songs — often lost among inadequate live venue sound rigs — are laid down here, clear and identifiable.
The music conjures all sorts of descriptions, evoking feelings of summer days (though we’ll have to wait till winter to see how effective that is, won’t we?), world music, film soundtracks, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, The Beach Boys and the sensation that you are watching an Elvis movie. Blue Hawaii probably.
Latest single “Tane Mahuta”, sung entirely in Maori, is a wonderful kitsch-drenched kiwiana anthem in-waiting, reminiscent of the unofficial Maori favourite, “Ten Guitars”. The ukuleles, flamenco guitar, horn section and maracas all serve to arrange it as a Pacific-styled spaghetti western theme.
The band are playing the last date of their current national tour tonight at The Kings Arms, before heading off to celebrate and support the March international release of the album, touring the U.S. and U.K. once more. Let’s hope wider New Zealand audiences embrace it and give it the attention that other earthy, feel good styles are commonly afforded. If we can still find room for the sickly strains of “How Bizarre” on our radio stations, then surely we should be open to this?
- David Skipwith
Video: The Ruby Suns perform “Tane Mahuta” on a Paris street…
February 24th, 2008 at 2:42 am
I’ve been listening to this constantly for the last few days, it’s such a lovely album. I hear something new on each listen.