House of Blondes – “First of July” (audio) (premiere)

Three years after the release of their debut album Clean Cuts, New York electronic trio House of Blondes are set to put out the follow-up Stranger Still this summer. As timing would have it, they have a shimmering new electropop track called “First of July” that we’re more than happy to premiere just in time for that symbolic start of a kid’s summer vacation.

“A couple years back Bryin Dall of Thee Majesty was putting together a record of songs based on the poems of William Blake,” says band member Chris Pace. “We were asked to do a version of ‘Schoolboy’ from [William] Blake’s Song of Experience, a piece essentially about how awful summer school is. We did try to keep a feeling of summer and the magic (and fragility) of summer break, but none of Blake’s words remain.

“Most of our favorite sounds are here: the bubbly arpeggios and vocoder from the well used Roland JP8080, variations of the classic Roland drum machines, analog synth squawks and noises (again mostly Roland gear), and live bass. The final mix was MIX21, completed at 6:17pm on 21 December 2014 — about as far away from summer as you can get.”

Stranger Still will be released 1 August.