Take 5 With Double Happiness

Photo credit: William Stanforth

After dropping their debut single only 12 months ago, Naarm’s own Double Happiness have just released their debut album ‘Derealisation’. A staggering amalgamation of post-punk, goth, darkwave and shoegaze, the album explores themes of digital alienation and fractured realities.

Now, here on AAA Backstage, the project’s lead songwriter and creative mastermind Sam Jemsek takes 5 and breaks down their most important artists and the music that has helped inform ‘Derealisation’. From heart-wrenching, depression anthems with bikini pool party aesthetics, to vocals that sound like they belong to a trapped Chernobyl engineer, delve into the world of Double Happiness.

Snow Strippers

Every time I listen to Snow Strippers on Youtube, there’s always a ton of comments comparing them to Crystal Castles, which is absolutely valid, and in fact it’s probably why I like them so much. But what sets them apart is this kind of trashy early 2000s Paris Hilton aesthetic they’ve adopted. It’s such a baffling decision to combine that with Witch House, but it creates this strange Lynchian (RIP) effect where sleazy cultural artifacts acquire this mythical quality. In short: combining heart-wrenching, aethereal depression anthems with decadent bikini pool parties is a rare kind of surrealist genius.

Molchat Doma – Etazhi

The album that started it all: Etazhi. You only get a few albums in a lifetime that describe a world you could never have imagined, using musical techniques that defy description until you see them in action for yourself. The album opens with the cheesiest, most naive drum fill I’ve ever heard. I still remember chuckling the first time I heard it. Then comes a bizarrely groovy synth line. And then finally, the vocals. The vocals sound like a voice memo of a Chernobyl engineer who has battled against the crises for sleepless days, and finally come to bitterly accept obliteration with dignity. In fact, if I happened to stumble upon a ruined cassette marked “1986” in the mud of an abandoned Former-Soviet metropolis, this is exactly what I’d hope to hear. Their first album, From Roofs Of Our Houses is also an unequivocal masterpiece. The sheer bravery and confidence required to record music in this way is astonishing. And the vibrato and tremolo of Komogortsev’s guitar will be iconic for decades to come.  A great side effect of the success of Etazhi is that it brought 80s bands from that part of the world into a broader spotlight as well. Na Zare by Alyans and Close The Door After Me by Kino are both essential listening.

Bragolin – Into Those Woods

I studied a bit of classical music on the side, because I suppose I’m just a fancy guy, and The Erlking, composed by Franz Schubert with words by Goethe, really caught my attention back then. The song tells the story of a deathly ill child being carried by his father on horseback through the woods to the town doctor. The singer plays the role of narrator, child, and father, all sung in different registers, and tells us both the literal story of the sick child, but also the boy’s perspective, which is a fevered delusion of a terrible beast called the Erlking hunting them down through the woods, eventually catching up to them at the moment of his death. That piece left me with an itch for songs that felt like an authentic “Brothers Grimm” folk tale, and “Into Those Woods” by Bragolin finally satisfied the craving. The galloping rhythm and siren vocals are so haunting, like some woodland creature luring you to some terrible demise. I think the lyrics are actually about the film Evil Dead, but they turn that movie into absolute poetry. The video clip is excellent as well.

READ MORE: No Cigar Share Dreamy New Single ‘Best Behaviour’ Amidst Rapid Global Rise

Public Circuit – Reach For The Knife

I don’t think it’s any secret that our musical heritage is mostly from things like Antifade, Aarrght Records and generally anything that Jake Robertson has been involved with. We’ll always have a bit of an affinity for lofi independent punk music, which is why Reach For The Knife hits so hard for us. It’s definitely darkwave, through and through, but it’s also got this playful DIY spirit to it that you don’t get as often in electronic music. The video is easily my favourite of the past decade, mostly because of the shadow boxing chainmail guy. The sounds of the synth are dialed in to absolute perfection as well. The whole track is just a great party.

KVB – White Walls

The KVB has been a mainstay for all of us since we saw them open for BJM in pre-lockdown times. Sometimes you can tell when something was written on hardware equipment – the arrangements aren’t overdone, there’s a jam quality to it, and the music sounds like it came from an interesting world that’s full of energy. I’d say that White Walls is one of the best synth tracks I’ve heard to this day. Something as simple as offsetting the root note on the synth loop makes the droning repetition feel like it’s evolving while doing the same thing. “Never Enough” is also in constant rotation. The whole of the album “Of Desire” immediately sends me back to a kind of blase indifference that I think was lost when we started all filming each other. Because understandably, that seemed to put people off publicly tripping, and pushing the limits of experience (for better or worse). There’s some phenomenal music being made now, but I’m afraid to say that the art of the strung out psych jam may be endangered. Luckily “Tremors”, which came out late last year, is still in excellent form.