Release Date: Feb 26, 2021
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Dream Pop
Record label: Bella Union
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Celebrating 24 years of Bella Union. In an interview with British outlet Loud and Quiet from 2014, ex Cocteau Twins and Bella Union record label owner Simon Raymonde recalls a simple trip to New York to get an inhaler for his asthma which resulted in a complicated health check that concluded that he, at the time, should have been dead. Well, the doctors got it all very wrong because fast forward six years and the man has weathered a pandemic, made an incredible record and signed up as many artists he could fit in Bella Union's office building.
In 2017 the Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde and Dif Juz's Richard Thomas hooked up and returned to recording after a lengthy hiatus with the warmly received Lost Horizons debut Olajá (Spanish for 'hope'). The fruit spawned from this tremulous step into the unknown (strewn with guest vocalists) was a fractured affair that, while enjoyable, felt like a potential not fully realised. Spurred on by Olajá's reception and as a way of processing a bereavement, In Quiet Moments would be forgiven for being a bleak proposition, but instead delivers an uplifting sigh in an expansive album that brings space and hope into these constricted days.
But 2017's Ojalá saw the two auteurs take up artistic reigns once again as they masterminded a charming record brimming with conceptual exploration and well-curated guest flourishes. If that wasn't enough to prove the pair rediscovered an original spark, their 2021 follow up, In Quiet Moments will certainly prove their impact as a creative force remains firm. Four years on, this record exists in a similarly conceptual dimension as its predecessor, but the musical genesis of the record occurred against the backdrop of increasing global unrest, and the death of Raymonde's mother.
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