Bristol, UK alt-pop duo Sun Spot premieres a new track, Mercury, via Rosecoloured Records. Mercury is the second single from the band’s forthcoming EP, Clipping.
The pair’s understanding of pop music is rooted in experimentation – drawing from new wave, bedroom pop, trip-hop, and electronica. Sun Spot’s minimalist approach to the genre is saturated with bombastic, sampled drums, waves of synthesised ambience, and interjections of distorted, glitched-out melody harking back to the titans of early 2000’s sample culture. You hear elements of bands like Toro y Moi, Now Now, From Indian Lakes, Washed Out, Beach House, and Turnover in their sound. In 2020 the band covered Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God).
Mercury is laid-back and minimalist, but belies a gurgling intensity beneath, hidden under ethereal pop hooks, lo-fi grit, and an underlying trip-hop vibe.
“I think I would genuinely struggle to make sense of the last year – a lot of people would,” muses frontman Will. “My perception of time has just completely disappeared. So I found myself thinking about life’s big, undeniable consistencies and the notion of a planet orbiting the sun felt like a good example of that in a very abstract sense. Mercury has this very subdued, contemplative feel to it, and I like that the same energy is maintained through the lyrics.”
Accompanied by a hypnotic visualiser from Harry Steel (Haunted Mattress, Grim_Rite), the single feels like being inside the eye of a hurricane — ambient soundscapes from the get-go, ethereal harmonies echoing throughout, before finally exploding into a frenzy of shoe gaze-inspired guitars as the song runs away with itself.
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