News

Introducing… Restless People

• 10th Sep 2010

Channelling the spirit of Genesis and General Public in the most gloriously giddy and sun-kissed of ways, this most tropical of treats paves the way for an Indian summer when the album soars into sight come September.

Restless People is a new project from Michael Bell-Smith, Jesse Cohen, Eric Emm and Tony Blankets. Friends and collaborators for years, all four first came together in 2006 when Eric began working with Professor Murder (an earlier project featuring Mike, Tony and Jesse), co-producing their acclaimed Professor Murder Rides the Subway EP. Since then they have worked in different permutations on various projects, most prominently Eric and Jesse’s experimental pop duo Tanlines.

Alternately a band and a production team, the four make music together the best way they know how in 2010. Live, Mike sings, Jesse plays synthesizers, computer and percussion, Eric plays guitar and sampler and Tony plays bass. Mostly though, they spend their time together in the studio, four producers and songwriters, taking turns with instruments and computers.

When they get together they talk a lot – about the internet, jeans, shoes, car repair, jobs, barber shops, positivity, sports, seltzer, appropriation, beer, relationships, style, pretzels and reality. They talk about music using adjectives like punk, pop, adult contemporary, global, dance and emotional. They argue with each other and tell lots of jokes.

On September 20, Restless People will release their debut album Restless People on Iamsound Records. A taut 8 songs in 28 minutes, Restless People connects the dots between disparate strains of pop music from the 80’s through the 00’s. Unabashedly filtering it all through their contemporary sensibility, the band constructs an alternate (very, very) near future of pop.

For fans of: General Public, DJ Cleo, The Belle Stars, Phil Collins, Maximum Joy, Gorilla Biscuits, Operation Ivy, and Nelly Furtado.

The album opens with tastemaker track ‘Days Of Our Lives’, released Sept 13, a song which could soundtrack the night of your life, replete with belearic beats, air-horns and an epic vocal. An amalgamation which is as infectious as it is off-kilter, tumbling steel drums and bongo’s wrap around vocals which are resonant of Ranking Roger from The Beat.