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Released October 3rd 2011 on Melodic | Mastered by George Atkins @ 80 Hertz Studio
Both ‘Induction’ and ‘Throwing Stones’ echo their rural hideout’s open terrain and almost cinematic space, evoking a setting where time becomes irrelevant, cast aside as the man made creation it is, and days become lost in quiet reflection, a melancholic tinge affecting the tracks as a result. Patterns’ lead singer Ciaran McAuley paints a more abstract picture, “we wanted to evoke the kind of woozy hypnotic space you get when you’re somewhere between sleeping and being awake,” he explains, “the weird mix of memories and visions you get when you’re disassociated from your body.”
Written “about being young and trying to create your place in the world,” what strikes one about the songs wash of pop-infused psychedelic shoegaze is how they, like seminal contemporaries Deerhunter and Panda Bear, look to those initial walls of dissonance made influential by the likes of The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, but then soften the edges. Experimenting with electronics and more hushed reverb and delay, they seek to create something otherworldly, yet all the while pushing their vocals forward enough to provide a real emotional core.
At a time when most new bands are shouting loudly, desperately in your face for attention at every turn, Patterns’ rise to prominence is a refreshing recall to the days when new music and sounds were discovered as a result of meandering exploration, when gems were stumbled upon live, hiding away in metropolitan backwaters or isolated rural territories. In the four-piece’s case they were “found” last year in the basement venue of a Mancunian suburb, curating their own monthly shows – having only formed some weeks previously – their sincere, wistful dream-pop drifting up and out of the stairwell, illuminating their surroundings, painting its maudlin Autumnal streets in soft-glow Technicolor.