Here’s some news to help everyone countdown the days until spring time. The Reds, Pinks and Purples are due to deliver a new album ‘Uncommon Weather’ on April 9th via Slumberland Records. It will be the third full release from the ‘band’ after 2019’s ‘Anxiety Art’ first revealed itself, before the shimmering, reflective song collection ‘You Might Be Happy Someday’ followed on swiftly last August. Suddenly here was some deceptively refreshing, re-energised jangle guitar music stirred by an undercurrent of everyday fears and trepidations.
There’s deception in the name too. The Reds, Pinks and Purples is more a collective term than a group name, a descriptor for the prolific outflow of ‘Cisco musician Glenn Donnaldson and his diligent interrogation of the possibilities of DIY songcraft. He’s been working on this project since exiting the Bay area indie rock scrum, focusing his artist’s eye on his Richmond neighbourhood, home recording about his home but reaching out way beyond.
That’s where the prospect of ‘Uncommon Weather’ promises to take us, a promise that preview track ‘Don’t Ever Pray in The Church on My Street’ suggests is going to be kept. There’s those opening chiming chords, the swooping sustain of the lead, the joyful drum pump and that frisky tambourine. There’s the lift of the close harmonies and Donnaldson’s understated dry vocals, wearily observing ‘rumours’, ‘panic’ and ‘bricks coming down’. It’s a glorious piece of slacker pop, that delivers a low-fi Dinosaur Jr to your kitchen with a loving Go-Betweens touch.
For more than the obvious reasons, April and the new Reds, Pinks and Purples can’t come soon enough….
See: The Reds, Pinks and Purples reveal new video for ‘Don’t Ever Pray In The Church on My Street’
