New York, NY (Top40 Charts) "One of the best songs of 2018" - John Richards, KEXP
"A gorgeously fuzz-washed slice of post-gaze… full of spine-tingling flourishes and trance-like beauty, warping and waning into gaseous clusters of reverb" - Get Into This
"Alan McGee and Ivo Watts-Russell would've signed this band in a heartbeat, hearing the celestial guitars and booming rhythm section let alone Haley's seductive, salubrious singing. Nothing soft about this sciencel" - Big Takeover Magazine
"Swirling delights with sugary, delectable vocals... brilliant energy with shimmering guitars, perfectly executed bass and percussion, bendy synths, and Katie Haley delivering some of my fave dreampop vocals in recent memory" - Somewherecold
"Where the haze of shoegaze meets the pristine lines of pop… They join dots between that pre-Brit pop territory of early Lush or The Darling Buds and modern alternative pop fringes encapsulating the same pure pop heart wrapped in shimmering sonics, always reminding us that pop can be big and it can be clever" - Dancing About Architecture
Dream-gaze syndicate Soft Science have announced their new 'Maps' album, slated for release on June 1 via Test Pattern Records. These 10 tracks establish the band among California's leading dream pop artists.
This follows up their double A-side singles 'Sooner/ Paris' (including a wistful-blue cover of Northern Picture Library's (NPL) 'Paris' as the B-side) and 'Undone / I Don't Know Why I Love You', which saw the band flirt with sounds closer to My Bloody
Valentine and The Primitives.
"The lyrics on 'Maps' are reflective of the process of time passing, relationships breaking apart, and coming together. Overall, there is an element of the idea of appreciating the time we have with the ones we love. The lyrics on 'Maps' are, at times, a stream of consciousness of everyday life and, at times, are more abstract but always with an undercurrent of processing life," says Katie Haley.
Hailing from the Sacramento Valley, Soft Science fuses melody, sound and texture of 60s pop and 90s shoegaze like molecular gastronomists blend physics and chemistry to transform food. Together this 5-piece band have managed to create their own sweet blend of modern pop music with a sonic edge.
The band's members are influenced by such bands ranging from the
Zombies and
Beach Boys to Lush, Teenage Fanclub, Ride, Pale Saints, New Order, and Jesus and Mary Chain, along with newer artists such as
Beach House and Frankie Rose.
Soft Science rose from the ashes of indie pop band California Oranges prior to releasing their last album in 2008. Soft Science was a natural transition for Katie Haley (Holiday Flyer) and twin brothers Ross and Matt Levine, who had essentially contributed to each other's music projects on an off for over a decade. With Katie Haley on vocals, Matt Levine on guitar, and Ross Levine on drums and back vocals, Soft Science were soon joined by bass player
Mason DeMusey to create unique dream pop music, inspired by 90s shoegaze and 60s brit pop. The band then solidified their sound with the addition of Tony Cale (English Singles) on drums and Ross moving to keyboards.
In 2011, Soft Science debuted with their 'High and Lows' LP, with Pop Matters noting the band's "potential to become one of the great Left Coast power pop bands." In 2013, the band released the 'Detour' LP, which received notable critical reviews and was ranked #2 among Jack Rabid's Top 40 in issue 74 of The Big Takeover Magazine.
Soft Science has played live with the likes of The Chills, Literature and Dead Leaf Echo, and has released a split 7" with The Luxembourg Signal, featuring Soft Science's well-received track 'Breaking'.
For this album, Soft Science received a helping hand from longtime friend and engineer Eric Stenmen (AWOLNATION, Tokyo
Police Club) with mastering at Malibu's
Black Bear 11 Studio and mixing of 'I Don't Know Why I Love You' at Redbull Studios in Los Angeles.
The 'Maps' album will appear on online stores and streaming platforms on June 1, but is already available for pre-order via the label's own Bandcamp, where the band's previous two singles are already available.
TRACK LIST
1. Undone
2. Breaking
3. Diverging
4. There
5. Apart
6. Sooner
7. Know
8. Still
9. Enough
10. Slip
All songs written by Soft Science: Ross Levine, Katie Haley, Matt Levine, Tony Cale, and
Mason DeMusey
Recorded at Prairie Sun in Cotati, California
Engineed by Matt Wright
Additional engineering and mixing by Tony Cale
Produced by Ross Levine and Tony Cale
Electronic sounds, ambience and textures by Hans Munz (Angelzero, IIIformants) analog synth / electronic overdubs
Mastered by Eric Stenman at
Black Bear 11 - Malibu, CA
