outlands – “com ocean”

Jun 12, 2012 by Pasta Primavera

Blacksburg, Virginia’s outlands play some sort of dark disco industrial ether. They swoon, grind, and dance my mind around the dark corner of the club/cave. They also have a debut EP coming soon on the ever-golden Chill Mega Chill Records.

“chances are, we spent too much time–if one can spend too much time–listening to stuff like Janet Jackson, Prince, Massive Attack, and Cocteau Twins. one could describe our concoction as Nu Shooz’s “I can’t wait” meets Toni Braxton’s “You’re makin’ me high” with hints of Robin S., Neneh Cherry, and leather. or not. in any case, we’re excited about our debut.”

They’ve also allowed us a first listen to a standout track from the EP, com ocean:

“com ocean was actually the first track that we worked on together as outlands, so it’s kind of special to us. I don’t even think we had a name for a project, or an idea that outlands would happen when we started playing around with this tune for fun. Mark came up with this pretty solid groove that was glamorous yet playfully sinister and had room for hazy ambiance and space. Before he was finished putting together the main parts of the song, Melissa took it and came up with this amazing vocal melody–which is pretty much identical to the one in the finished version. The melody kind of tricks you into thinking the lyrics are more romantic than they actually are. The name com ocean was a play on the Madonna’s Causing a Commotion — Melissa just started singing the line “where were you when we could be causing a commotion” in a demo, and the title was born. We were also listening to Peter Gabriel’s third album on repeat for about a month when we wrote this. At the time, it wasn’t necessarily a conscious thing, but I can definitely hear Games without Frontiers’ influence when I listen back!”

Here’s another cut from the EP as well: