The Raveonettes Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner are excited to announce the release of their new album Observator, out September 11, 2012 on Vice Records. Throughout their impressive career the Danish duo has explored sonic territories ranging from lush pop songs to reverb drenched soundscapes and continually celebrated life through songwriting. All of these forms are evident in Observator, sumptuous and beautiful in its sound, but bleak and sad at its heart. “When you start to record a new album, people always ask you what you think it will sound like. It’s almost impossible to talk about music that doesn’t exist but when we started work on our sixth album late last year, I thought that for once, I had a pretty good idea,” says Sune. “Put simply, Observator was supposed to be our Los Angeles album. At least, that’s what I imagined it to be in my head. As much as I love New York and feel almost constantly inspired by the noise and confusion here, the allure of the west coast has always loomed large for The Raveonettes. When it came time to start work on this album, the warm Pacific pull had become irresistible.”
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“The fact that I was listening to The Doors constantly only added to the seductive draw of the drowning sun. I wanted to get back to that classic verse-chorus-verse style of song writing that The Doors managed so well on their best singles. It’s a very specific and evocative feel that I wanted to achieve, and going out west seemed the best way to capture it.” Sadly Sune says, “What I found however was quite the opposite. I found dread and despair in LA, a wicked loneliness that only furthered my intake of substances. I couldn’t focus and inspiration was fleeting or mostly absent.” Throwing himself into the real lives of people he encountered in both California and New York Sune soaked up the stories of both cities. “I get a lot of my ideas when I’m out. I get drunk and have moments of lucidity where I scribble down notes and thoughts. The next day, I’ll start channeling the thoughts I had the previous night. That’s sort of always worked for me but this time, I had to go the long way round to remember that.”
Observator was recorded at the legendary Sunset Sound Studios with mentor Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, Go-Gos, Richard Hell), who the band worked with on album Pretty In Black. “It was during these sessions that a new dimension to the Raveonettes began to develop; it’s the first time we’ve ever used the piano and what a glorious, gloomy sound it makes. We knew immediately that it was something we needed to expand on. But make no mistake; Observator is still a gorgeous guitar album. Overall, we took just seven days to record Observator so in that context, it’s one of the quickest and easiest albums we’ve ever done. It was getting in the right frame of mind to actually write the songs that took several agonizing months. For so long, I tried to capture a new muse and carve out a path forward for us. I travelled thousands of miles to find it and experienced all kinds of insanity along the way. Yet all the while, the future of The Raveonettes was in the people, the occurrences, and the relationships that were immediately around me. It’s not an LA album. It’s not even a New York album. It’s a collection of observations that occur in life and as I’ve learned, life happens everywhere.”
