Mylar

“Beguiling blend of electronica, R&B and soft pop” - Sunday Times Breaking Act

“Sure to be a hit with fans of art-pop and indie rock alike” Wonderland

“Colourful, vivacious songwriting” CLASH

Accompanying the announcement of a new EP Lost In The Shuffle - due for release 16th April 2024 - London art-pop trio Mylar share the taut and intimate synth-funk grooves of new single ‘Scribbled Sunset’.

With tightly clipped rhythmic jerks and sharp-as-you songwriting smarts all finessed inside a lean two-minute package - ‘Scribbled Sunset’ breezes along with a blood-rush urgency while hardly breaking a sweat. With a chorus as cutting as it is succinct (“don’t you have a heart for me?”), it’s also the band’s grooviest, and most soulful work to date, as vocalist Tom Short explains:

“This song came together from us trying to use a sound which is essentially the slap bass sound from the Seinfeld intro music. It’s quite upfront and direct and it looks at that moment in a relationship where you’re questioning whether someone is that interested anymore. And that image of a ‘scribbled sunset’ is talking about the need many of us have to paint over things even when they’re clearly not working.”

The follow-up to last spring’s Human Statues EP - released via Blue Flowers (Nilufer Yanya, Puma Blue) to acclaim from The Sunday Times (Breaking act), Clash, Wonderland, Notion, Brooklyn Vegan, The Most Radicalist, Rough Trade Counter Culture, The Line of Best Fit, Blogotheque and So Young - ‘Scribbled Sunset’ sees the band brave it alone, signalling a new era for the group. While sustaining their love for the 80s pop textures of XTC, The Blue Nile and The Cure, the Mylar of 2024 sheds their glossy pop hues of yesteryear and - via personal upheavals, line-up changes - emerges a heavier, rawer and groovier beast:“Everything's a bit more soulful because there’s more at stake.”

And with an EP launch to come at Sebright Arms in April, the band continue to add to their list of live achievements. Among them include a residency at West London’s Laylow, supports for John Myrtle, Attawalpa, Moon Panda and Francis Lung, plus sold-out headlines in Manchester (Yes Basement) and London (The Waiting Room).

Mylar are: Tom Short (Lead vocal, bass, keys), Tom Clark (Lead Guitar, Synth), Robert Janke (Drums, Vocals)

‘Scribbled Sunset’ by Mylar is available for streaming on 9th February 2024 - Stream

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More about Mylar and ‘Lost In The Shuffle’ EP

Mylar’s 3rd EP in as many years offers both a fresh start, and a quiet evolution. Beset by various personal and professional upheavals since the release of Human Statues last Spring, the West London trio quickly headed back into the studio having severed ties with their former label and rejigged their line-up - the tribulations of life inflicting a few more emotional scars along the way.

Seconds into new EP ‘Lost in The Shuffle’, all these fresh batterings and bruises are there for all to hear. Kicking things off with the tender, hypnotic ‘A Man Will Make’ and all it’s 80s-leaning textures, it’s becomes apparent that the sugary-pop aesthetics of Human Statues have shifted towards something altogether richer and more profound “When you’re questioning whether you’re going to carry on with the project it makes you really want to do your best. Maybe that makes everything a bit more soulful because there’s more at stake,” confesses lead vocalist Tom Short.

And yet, as the now-three-piece of Short, Tom Clark (Lead guitar, vocals) and Robert Janke (drums, vocals), were originally drawn together - via scheming pints at South London pubs - by a mutual love of alternative 80s pop records of The Cure, XTC, The Blue Nile - the quartet of songs that make up ‘Lost in the Shuffle’ continues to holds those classics close to its chest.

Inspired by the “mysterious and archetypal” lyrical narratives explored by these influences - “Where everything in music now feels extremely literal and diaristic”, notes Short - this latest clutch of new material duly provides a sequence of melancholic care-worn tales, addressing each song to their listener with the intimacy of confession, and also the timelessness of a cautionary tale. Whether it’s “looking at that moment in a relationship where you’re questioning whether someone is that interested anymore” (‘Scribbled Sunset’), a figurative study of “frantic and relentless” nature of inner-city living (‘Cold’), or the disappointment of being sold false promises (‘A Man Will Make’), the problems picked apart in these songs feels as much our own as they do Mylar’s.

Despite these themes, ‘Lost In the Shuffle’ is far from a depressing listen. Quite the opposite. Approaching the studio with a cheeky experimentalism, and drive for succinct, catchy art-pop statements, the band pledged to write “quickly and instinctively, in the studio ,” without fussing so much over different elements”. As a result, come the loose, sumptuous grooves on ‘Wallflower’, broaching the kind of raw, live-band feel shied away from in earlier projects. Also, too the funkiness of ‘Scribbled Sunset’, which arose from an attempt to recreate the slap bass sound from the Seinfeld theme music. And then there’s insistent chords at the opening of ‘Cold’, written in an attempt to resemble an alarm, quite literally nudging the song awake. Indeed, in true XTC fashion, lyrical content and musical frameworks blend seamlessly into one - the anxious, chaotic rhythms and jerks bracing itself the proverbial ‘cold snap’ of song’s central image.

Recorded with Michael Smith at RYP recordings in West London (Bess Atwell, Weird Milk, Slaney Bay), another new inclusion to the Mylar method was the “shit but brilliant sound” of late 80s synthesiser, the Korg M1 - the instrument made famous for its use in Madonna’s ‘Vogue’. Perhaps this implicit nostalgia found in the music’s very components provides that final piece in this Mylar puzzle. Establishing distance from the rawness of emotion held in the songs gives the music a light, familiar, and welcoming hue. It’s just another element in what make’s Mylar’s music so pretty, touching, and quietly uplifting.

Lost in the Shuffle EP by Mylar - Due 16th April 2024 (Self-Released)