Introducing: Socks and Ballerinas - “Instant WTF” Duo Announce New Album 'A Bit Jumpy.' Released 27th September 2024
Introducing: Socks and Ballerinas
“Instant WTF” Duo Announce New Album A Bit Jumpy. Released 27th September 2024
Lead Single ‘Newton’ Released 23rd May 2024
Watch the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5aXaEnyz8
Stream and share - HERE
Dot To Dot Festival Appearance + Select Live Dates Announced
Bristol instrumental duo Socks and Ballerinas are delighted to announce that their new album A Bit Jumpy. will be released on 27th September 2024.
To celebrate the news, the band are streaming lead single ‘Newton’ which is released 23rd May 2024 on all good digital platforms.
The new track comes with an official music video directed by Sam Wisternoff (Ill Spectre Productions) which showcases a fraction of the sprawling FX pedal boards, sample pads, midi controllers, and looping gear the band use, alongside a frenetic live performance blended with sumptuous painted imagery.
Commenting on the single, guitarist Leo says: “‘Newton’ is based on an old song of mine that I started writing something like 13 years ago, when I left my home country for the first time and Socks and Ballerinas didn’t yet exist. During the years it went through tons of iterations, including some heavy electronic experiments which heavily influenced the final version and helped shape the overall vibe of the new album.”
“When Leo showed me the guitars for ‘Newton’, I instinctively went for a drum and bass rhythm without even knowing about the song’s history,” adds drummer Katy. “Elements of this track are from the early days we played together in a short lived previous band before we formed Socks and Ballerinas. We brought it back to life adding synths and heavily reworking its structure.”
Formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 2016, and now freshly arrived back in the UK from a stint working in Helsinki, Finland, Socks and Ballerinas are an instrumental live looping duo based in Bristol consisting of Leonardo Calamati (guitar, bass and synths) and Katalin Helfenbein (drums).
Coining their own sound as “instant WTF”—a surprisingly apt description of their mind-bending approach to creating music—their decidedly signature sound contains elements of math-rock, electronic music, progressive rock and more, namechecking Battles, Aiming for Enrike, Bearcubbin, Radiohead and Ratatat as just of few of their myriad influences.
Making enough chaotic noise to convince the unaware of a lineup many times their actual size, the pair fuse distorted and electronic melodies with a good dose of danceable ear-worms. Listening to their music is like being on the most white-knuckle roller coaster you’ve ever ridden: ups and downs, double speed, sudden stops, reversing, unexpected endings…nothing is ever quite what it seems in their upside down universe.
Calamati’s looped and warped guitar tones somersault and morph, imitating pretty much everything and anything you can imagine other than a traditional rock guitar sound, whilst Helfenbein’s metronomic, precision work on the skins holds the whole teetering jenga tower together.
The band’s 2019 debut album SOAP! received exceptional reviews from niche alternative tastemakers and its opener ‘Salmon Soup’ has been included in the OST of the award winning video game CONTROL, which Calamati also served as concept artist for—the guitarist even managed to sneak a free Bandcamp download code for the album into the game as a hidden easter egg, as well as several visual references to their music.
Socks and Ballerinas will be revealing further details of forthcoming new album A Bit Jumpy., which promises to push the boundaries of the electronic sounds that they mix with their unique analogue style ever further, over the coming months.
The two piece will be appearing at this year’s Dot To Dot Festival later this month, with a Bristol headline show at The Thunderbolt on 5th June, and further live dates TBA.
New album A Bit Jumpy. released 27th September 2024
Live Dates:
25th May - Bristol - Mr Wolfs, Dot to Dot Festival
5th June - Bristol - The Thunderbolt
Socks and Ballerinas are:
Leonardo Calamati (guitar, bass and synths)
Katalin Helfenbein (drums)
Socks and Ballerinas online:
https://www.socksandballerinas.com
https://www.instagram.com/socksandballerinas
https://www.facebook.com/Socksandballerinas
https://twitter.com/SocksBallerinas
