The Breakdown
Not to be confused with Brisbane surfgaze band The Double Happiness, Double Happiness is the work of Naarm/Melbourne based multi-instrumentalist Sam Jemsek and we are ever so pleased to be able to premiere the debut album ‘Derealisation’.
‘Derealisation’ is a dark gothic delight that hums over a throbbing electronica that courses through its sonic veins. There is a swagger in the delivery, a mix of brutal industrial crunch with softly undulating synths and vocals with anthemic melodies and a studied dissonance that thrills.
From the opening track, ‘Electric Sheep’ there is a dreamy quality to the music – Jemsek’s vocals are dark and sonorous, deep and thrilling, the music a wall of scything electronica and guitars that creates a shimmering ominous sonic assault. ‘Blindsight’ sparkles with a motorik intensity and enigmatic vocals with a shading of Depeche Mode or Killing Joke: a gothic tinged wash that thrills with its melodies and anthemic qualities as Jemsek sings of a disturbance in the air.
‘Dark Matters’ has an almost disco fervour with its thumping pace and electronic thunder, synths cutting a swathe in the ether. ‘December Curse’ again draws in a dark powered pop element – think of something by Cabaret Voltaire or Nine Inch Nails with its energetic fuzzy thrum and exhortations in the distance: omous and prowling with a delicious ill intent. The track is anarchic, chaotic, industrial. The dissonance continues with ‘Artificial Sun (hardwired to fear)’ with its wild uncontrolled synths and Jemsek’s distant cold vocals simmering under the fray. And yet through the chaos, melodies filter through, almost antithetical sweet.
‘Znamya’ sets off on an out of control kilter with a driving beat and metallic clang, pulsing like blood in the veins, highlighted by a soaring chorus. In contrast, ‘Morning Light’ has an airier feel with its scything guitars redolent of The Mission. Indeed the vocals have that gothic blush: studied and theatrical.
‘Sleep Paralysis’ has the shoegaze rush of MBV and the lyrical urgency of a band like Magazine of The Horrors; it’s a heady pulse quickening rush over an ambulatory liquid bass that throbs like a breached artery. ‘Worthwhile’ has elements of JAMC with its wall of noise and dynamism that ebb and flow with intensity.
Final track ‘Staring At The Walls’ sparkles in the sunshine, highlighting Double Happiness’s inherent pop sensibilities, albeit cloaked in a barbed wire wrap with the Peter Hook bass runs providing a steely spine.
Jemsek says of the album:
If I had to distil the album down to just one thing, I’d say the album is a catalogue of different realities. Each song is kind of like a different brain looking at the same thing. Sometimes it’s a machine, sometimes it’s an animal, sometimes it’s just me after sleeping weird.
Jemsek goes on to explain:
There was a turning point a few years ago where the vibe of everything got really weird, and never completely went back. You could still go outside, and still do things in the world, but everyone knew that the important and legitimate stuff was happening online somewhere else, and the physical world around you was just one of many content streams. Through the album, I wanted to create some record or artifact that describes this atmosphere, because I have a feeling it’s the same for everyone, but no one can really put it into words.
‘Derealisaton’ is a stunning debut – the very title suggesting an element of deconstruction of tropes, taking apart and rebuilding dark gothic electronica into something quite transcendent and exciting. It’s out tomorrow and will be available here and via all the usual download and streaming sites.
Live, Double Happiness is Jemsek with Ben Callaghan (keyboards, samplers, drum machines), Will Stanforth (bass), and Sam Walsh (guitar).
Feature Photograph: William Stanforth
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