SEVEN NOISES

I introduced you to Boy Friend some months ago, just after some weeks of formation when they released a digital download only 4 track EP you can still get in here. From the ashes of the former Sleep Over as a trio (now is just one of the original members with some outside help) Christa and Sarah left to form Boy Friend a similar sounding project that, although it's just months in the working, they already released their first physical single this week, the haunting and delicate Lovedropper on Hell, Yes!, accompanied on the B side by a re-working of the first EP song D'Arrest. For the A side of the single they've prepared a day-glo video that is meant to be seen vertical. I mean, instead of the normal horizontal landscape view, Boy Friend asked Amanda Joy to make a video and they decided vertical was the way to go, taking into consideration the video would only be seen on-line, where anything is possible as TV screens are no longer the place to watch music videos anymore and the web is a more free way of exploring new possibilities and formats for what is already a quite old form of art.

A couple of months ago, with the release of Boy Friend's first EP containing two members out of the three from Sleep ∞ Over, we thought that meant the end of the band. We just were slightly sad as there were not many differences in sound between the original project and it's son and, actually, the four songs in that E.P were amongst its best. This week though, our suspects were dis-confirmed as a new release from the now one girl band, the remaining original founding member Stefanie Franciotti, has been announced for next month Hippos in Tanks followed by the release of a whole album on the same label in Summer with the help from Christine Aprile among others. Meanwhile we can enjoy the A side of the single, Casual Diamond, that will have a remix of the same track by Laurel Halo as the B side. The funny thing of the whole story is that, while Boy Friend, the two thirds that left the band, followed from close the same sound of the band they quited, the remaining member has slightly mutated Sleep ∞ Over into something that, although as mysterious as before, is less atmospheric and full of light.

Sometimes, if the results of a split can divide talents into two having then double good results, we welcome the splits with joy.

Last year we saw a couple of releases from a band called Sleep ∞ Over who investigated into the atmospheric parameters of bands like Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and other 4AD bands from the 80s. After some months of silence, a new project from two of its members called Boy Friend appeared yesterday at BandCamp. Not sure if this means that Sleep ∞ Over are not more but seems logic as their first EP called simply Boy Friend follows what their single for Forest Family Records started and if these songs where not signed under this new name it would be impossible to guess it's a new project without knowing it in advance.
It was up for download for free yesterday. From today you'll have to pay $4 USD for the whole thing (4 tracks) or $1 for individual tracks, but it's worth the money as it is even better than what they've done before.

Get it here

Boy Friend - The False Cross