Hailing from Bordeaux Alba Lua are a three-piece comprising of Pepo Durantez (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Pascal Hoerner (lead guitar, backing vocals and bass) and Renoi Jacob Mathieu (drums and percussion). 'Valley of Abra' is taken from their debut EP Ballad of Joseph Merrick, which was recorded in Barcelona a couple of days after the band saw Neil Young, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth play at the Primavera Sound Festival. Tellingly 'Valley of Abra' features a thrilling mix of shoe-gazey pop and blissed-out summer sunshine.
The press release for this mentions that Vice described it as 'Syd Barrett sound tracking a spaghetti western, i.e. eccentric, reverb-heavy, dreamy pop music' and whilst BlackPlastic generally think Vice are a bunch of twats when it comes to music reviews they kind of got Alba Lua on the money. We have spent the last few days wandering around in Rockstar's rather ace Red Dead Redemption video game, set in the Wild West, and 'Valley of Abra' would make a fantastically psychedelic addition to the soundtrack.
Alba Lua are currently working on a new EP and an album is expected in early 2011.
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