North London alt-pop duo Blue Violet share new single ‘Imagine Me', the latest track taken from their forthcoming new album Faux Animaux, out on September 27 on Me & My Records via High Head Recordings.
Amid dark 80s electro-rock tones akin to a more seductive Depeche Mode, ‘Imagine Me’ portraits a lustful temptress – groupie, cougar, stalker or lovelorn loner – frustrated that the sexual encounter she so meticulously plots is over in a flash. “Imagine me waiting in your dressing room” / “Only I know just how to get to you,” purrs Sarah McGrigor – crystalline singer of Scottish-French-Moroccan heritage.
The song, the duo say, “is about the anticipation of a sexual encounter, the lust that goes with fantasising about it, and the subsequent disappointment of it ending too soon. We have leaned into electronic influences from the 80s on this one with the bass synth driving the track, and a The Smiths-esque guitar riff that drops in and out throughout.”
Listen to ‘Imagine Me’ by Blue Violet on the Shoot Music New Releases playlist on Spotify.
On the album Faux Animaux, Blue Violet continue their exploration of rich electronic avenues inspired by Calvi, St Vincent, Radiohead, Bowie, recent Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Twin Peaks. With their songwriting as sublime as ever, they’ve become one of the most enthralling underground propositions of the age. Recorded in Bristol’s J&J studios with Bat For Lashes and Hannah Peel mixer / producer TJ Allen, ‘Faux Animaux’ is a unified and sophisticated update of modern British alt-pop, drifting from sizzling space disco to stunning, swirling cinematic vistas.
“A lot of the themes on the album are about human observation and the ironies of human behaviour,” says Sarah. “We invent things that move us further and further away from nature and shun our animal instincts,” adds Sam. “In a sense we are fake animals sharing a planet with billions of real ones. On the other hand, our animalistic nature cannot be completely buried – we try to push it down, but it is such a big part of us that it fights to be free.”
Blue Violet returned to the stage in March, when they were invited to play a song with The Gaslight Anthem during various shows at London’s Roundhouse, but Faux Animaux is set to usher in their own glory days. It’s a stunning amalgam of modernism and melody that spotlights not just humankind’s failings and fakery but its leaders’ too. “The fake animals could be seen as the powers that be, leading us down paths that result in us ignoring our more natural instincts, often making decisions without our permission,” says Sam.
