RAIN SWORD COMES WITH THE GOODS!

Rain Sword

Sail Club

“Sail Club” is a new three
track EP from Newport Beach CA’s Rain Sword. Rain Sword is 23 year
old Myles Rogers and will be familiar to New Retro Wave followers
having had the track ‘Visions’ included on The 80’s Dream Compilation
Tape Vol. 2.

Opening track ‘Sailing With You’
features Myles on vocals in an understated 80s synth-pop style. Think
of a quieter Morten Harket from A-Ha and you get the picture. What’s
nice about the delivery is that Myles is not an over-reaching diva
and there’s no AutoTune to ruin things. It’s natural and fits the
track perfectly.

Next up ‘Skyline’ picks up the pace but
like all Rain Sword tracks is tastefully restrained allow the hooks
to come through. This would be perfect for a TV or film montage scene
where boy finally takes the hard-to-get girl on a date, picking her
up in his convertible and driving around all day; firstly heading to
the beach then ending up back in the city as the sun goes down, with
the neon’s lighting up.

‘Drifting Away’ is another catchy
number with what sounds like a sampled choir-like line from the Korg
DSS-1. Some nice little tom rolls accent the song along with some
well-placed breaks and builds. I could imagine this being a “Love
Life”-era Berlin track – just add Terri Nun’s vocals and some
electric guitar and it’d be good to go.

Myles uses hardware synths to create
his music and arranges in Ableton Live – The Yamaha DX7, Roland
Juno 6 both feature heavily to set things up for an authentic vibe.
To me, all the songs on “Sail Club” eschew the sunny
location of Newport Beach in the mid-80s rather than music
specifically written for a loveless, futuristic cyberworld. Hitting
the freeway with these tunes blasting from your in-dash Alpine
cassette player (presumably on the way to get on your yacht to sail
out to Catalina Island) makes perfect sense. Excellent stuff.