Having already established his Beach Boys fascination with 2005's self-titled debut, Ryan McPhun reached into his travel journals for Sea Lion, spiking the Ruby Suns' pop/psychedelia with ample amounts of African, Polynesian, and Kenyan instrumentation. The resulting album follows the recent paths of Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend by finding some middle ground between indie pop and world music. Sea Lion is an aural melting pot, with ukuleles and sun-baked singalongs sharing space alongside '80s-styled electronica and programmed percussion. It unfolds in layers, opening with the spacey Hawaiian cadence of "Blue Penguin" before segueing into two of the album's most genuine folk numbers. "Oh, Mojave" and "Tane Mahuta" are as earnest as they are indigenous, the latter featuring polyphonic percussion and elegantly harmonized lyrics sung in the Polynesian dialect of Maori. Throughout it all, McPhun weaves in modern production -- a processed keyboard here, a vocal effect there -- so that by the time "There Are Birds" introduces a bit of hypnotic dream pop into the mix, it hardly sounds out of place. The Ruby Suns still remain heavily indebted to Brian Wilson, but they largely confine themselves to his enigmatic SMiLE period, making heavy use of sleigh bells, vibraphones, and reverb-washed vocals throughout the album's second half. Only when "Morning Sun" takes an abrupt turn into Depeche Mode territory does Sea Lion falter, particularly given its final position in the track list. Listeners are left scratching their heads, wondering where the enigmatic jungle pop music went, only to return to McPhun's sunny sounds once the album reverts back to track one. Culture clashes never sounded so good.
If Sigur Rós and the Beach Boys ventured out to the desert together, channeled the spirits of an early 20th century mariachi band, and took a magical, musical sleigh-ride through a snowcapped desert, all while Sufjan Stevens and his backing band stood around a Joshua tree, providing sweetly spooky atmospherics, then the result might sound something like The Ruby Suns' Sea Lion. The sophomore al..
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My favorite band from New Zealand, The Ruby Suns, have been keeping busy since releasing their second LP Sea Lion earlier this year. Somehow between touring, resting, and self-discovering, they've managed to pop into the recording studio now and again, churning out at least three gems. NOt only that, but they've decided to give them away for free:[MP3] The Ruby Suns - Birthday (Beatles Cover)...
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There are bands and when you hear them, there are people that come to mind and just thinking about it puts you off of it. “That band sounds so weird, its like they’re trying to be weird” you can hear yourself say the first time you put the record on. It's the kind of record where if you put it on, people are going to roll their eyes and now you are one of those guys, who listens to cooler th
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Yes, it's coming up at this very moment, as I sit here idle on ichat, sans sleep, and write about a band called: The Ruby Suns.So, they hail from New Zealand. Island-inspired psychedelic rock meets cosmic-inspired chaotic niceness. So good! Especially their second album Sea Lion, and especially Morning Sun, particularly because 3:20 in, the first half of the song leaks into the second half, and...
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There are bands and when you hear them, there are people that come to mind and just thinking about it puts you off of it. “That band sounds so weird, its like they’re trying to be weird” you can hear yourself say the first time you put the record on. It's the kind of record where if you put it on, people are going to roll their eyes and now you are one of those guys, who listens to cooler th
More >
The Ruby Suns are going to be a hot number at SXSW this year. The Auckland, New Zealand band has been generating a lot of buzz recently and they just released this video for "Tane Mahuta" off their upcoming new LP. Sea Lion will be released on Sub Pop March 4th, just in time for the roadtrip to Austin. The Ruby Suns will also be hot at SXSW because they come from the Southern hemisphere, the...
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I'm writing this from inside our rented motorhome at a KOA in Sandusky, Ohio. It's right near cedar point, an "amusement park" but we're not going to that. we're playing in detroit tonight with these seriously sweet dudes, tilly and the wall.we played at a massive ampitheatre kind of thing outside of pittsburgh. i think the capacity was somewhere around 20k. needless to say, there weren't 20,00...
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If Sigur Rós and the Beach Boys ventured out to the desert together, channeled the spirits of an early 20th century mariachi band, and took a magical, musical sleigh-ride through a snowcapped desert, all while Sufjan Stevens and his backing band stood around a Joshua tree, providing sweetly spooky atmospherics, then the result might sound something like The Ruby Suns' Sea Lion. The sophomore al..
More >
My favorite band from New Zealand, The Ruby Suns, have been keeping busy since releasing their second LP Sea Lion earlier this year. Somehow between touring, resting, and self-discovering, they've managed to pop into the recording studio now and again, churning out at least three gems. NOt only that, but they've decided to give them away for free:[MP3] The Ruby Suns - Birthday (Beatles Cover)...
More >
| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Blue Penguin |
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| 2 Oh, Mojave |
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| 3 Tane Mahuta |
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| 4 There Are Birds |
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| 5 It's Mwangi in Front of Me |
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| 6 Remember |
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| 7 Ole Rinka |
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| 8 Adventure Tour |
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| 9 Kenya Dig It? |
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| 10 Morning Sun |
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Click to purchase…
© 2006-2009 Mog Inc. All Rights Reserved
 "Sea Lion")
