New Morning Blues is a new folk collaborative project from wife and husband Joanna Backovic and Ian de Sylva. They’ve just released their first single, A Face in the Mirror, and you can get it here. They’ve also announced their debut album – London – which is out on 5th June.
They create a beguiling and unconventional sound, based on the collision of folk, country and indie to produce something really interesting. When A Face in the Mirror first starts, the dark, rustic folk and de Sylva’s gravely vocals immediately conjure up the Handsome Family, but as the song progresses, that notion soon dissipates and is replaced with a growing pop/rock sensibility which takes the song in a totally different and satisfying direction.
There’s a cinematic quality to the sound and to the lyrics, a sense of a story being told on an expansive canvas with the colours of the painting changing before our eyes. The interplay between Backovic’s and de Silva’s vocals is smooth as silk and the strings that accompany the song give it a majestic sweep. de Silva says:
I dreamt I was watching a country and western movie with a compelling soundtrack, so I tried to replicate that when I woke up!
Whilst New Morning Blues might be a new artistic collaboration, Backovic and de Sylva have plenty of experience under their respective belts. They run a music studio together in Soho although this is the first time they’ve created music together. Backovic is a composer and performance artist who scores for theatre and film and performs under the name ‘ArHai’. de Sylva’s first band, Silver, released a single on Rough Trade Records and was then signed to Warner Bros, honing their live chops and recording two albums.
A Face in the Mirror is a damn good debut which showcases a band that are comfortable painting in wide strokes and taking us on a journey through interlaced musical styles to create a sense of cinematic scale.
Debut album London will be released later this year.
Catch New Morning Blues online: Instagram | Facebook
