Week in Pop: Delorean Gray, Loi Loi, TMBG

Post Author: Sjimon Gompers

Well Well Well

The latest from San Diego’s Well Well Well; press photo courtesy of the band.

San Diego’s Well Well Well emerged this week with the new visual from Billy Hall for their Gardens & Villa produced single “Sleeping Away“. The former Barbarian members move toward those Beach Boy affectated coastal getaways that share some of those warm Pacific coastal winter essences & feelings with the rest of the world that is buried in snow & sleet. The feeling of unbridled free-will cast by the world of dreams & visions painted by the unconscious are expressed in both the song & visual as Well Well Well takes a deep dive into the ecstatic environments created when the mind is deep in the land of sleep.
The “Sleeping Away” visuals from Billy Hall, Nick Morr, Erin Smith & Marisa Thiamin provide an alternate visual take on Well Well Well’s redux of the classic “Mr. Sandman” construct. Combining programmed 808 drums, rhythmic guitars, met by saxophone, mellotron & the group’s own inspired vocal harmonies; Well Well Well presents their own modern vintage world of distraction that exists in the realm of the daydream. Sky gazing, performance close ups of brass, piano keys & guitar strings and more are mixed with oceanic elements that provide motifs mixed visually with images of SoCal highway & survey scenes of track home neighborhoods & endless freeways that point to places of travel & escape.

Well Well Well penned the following exclusive reflections on their new single & visual for “Sleeping Away”:

“Sleeping Away” is the first single off two EPs that will be released throughout the first couple months of 2018. An eclectic collection of sounds experimenting with 808 drums, “Mr. Sandman” hypnotic guitars, lush saxophone, hazy mellotron layers and three part vocal harmonies. Lyrically inspired by becoming lost in a daily daydream and the modern attraction of distraction.
Collaborating with Gardens & Villa was a surreal experience. We recorded four songs in five days, putting in around 14 hours a day at their pop-up studio built from the ground up in an empty warehouse on the Los Angeles River in Frogtown, USA. We immediately got to work and soon realized our oddities were to become our bonding elements and set an environment for pure creative exploration. Sleeping in the cave-like living room, cozying up inside the kick drum gave it a feeling of committing night and day to bringing these songs to life. Fueled by an endless supply of La Croix varietals and warm, relaxing sunsets on the LA River.

Listen to more from Well Well Well via Bandcamp.