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Hear Forrests’ Sublime, Beta-Unblocking ‘Tarifa’

Forrests / Photo by Sarah Doyle

Currently in talks with a couple of U.K. independent labels, Dublin’s Forrests describe their style as “beta-unblocking electronic music.” That sounds about right: Beta blockers inhibit the human fight or flight response, and Forrests’ music is all about flight — the soaring-in-air kind. The duo’s hardware-centric approach and heavy-lidded bliss suggest a kinship with bands like Blondes, Fuck Buttons and Teengirl Fantasy, with throbbing synthesizers, tribal drum loops, and pneumatic vocals tracing Spirograph shapes against a pastel sky.

The unreleased “Tarifa,” below, channels the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and Power Corruption & Lies-Era New Order into a dreamy house cut in the emotive vein of John Talabot or Pantha du Prince; springy arpeggios and wordless voices weave a net for catching found sounds and thundering drum breaks. The video was shot and animated by Brendan Canty (not the Fugazi one, but the co-director of Cork’s Feel Good Lost agency) and Alex Mamontov, and it makes the perfect synaesthetic complement to the song’s soft-focus twirl.

If you’re in Ireland, catch the band’s live debut this weekend at Co Laois’ Electric Picnic Festival, where their sound should fit right in amongst headliners like Sigur Ros, Orbital, Caribou vs. Four Tet, and John Talabot.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/48482317