Vancouver-based jangle-pop/shoegaze band, The Sylvia Platters, released their newest record Vivian Elixir on April 26th via Grey Lodge Records. The album was released on both digital and cassette.
“Vivian Elixir is an intoxicating concoction, a little sugar to help with the sadness. But is its potent mixture a miracle cure, pure snake oil, or just another escape from the mundane horrors of everyday life?” (Band sheet, The Sylvia Platters)
At the core of The Sylvia Platters are brothers Nick (vocals/guitar) and Tim (drums/vocals) Ubels, who have been playing music together all their lives. Since the band’s inception in 2014, The Sylvia Platters have picked up members, Alex Kerc-Murchison (guitar) and Stephen Carl O’Shea (bass) to evolve their sound into the melodic and melancholic vibes heard throughout Vivian Elixir. The recording process of Vivian Elixir focuses on collaboration between the four bandmates.
In a recent interview with Nick Ubels, he gave insight into their new work, inspirations, writing process and more.
“We try to stay pretty open to ideas. I feel like there’s a mix of deliberately working on writing and trying to be open to different ideas wherever they may come from,” he said. “As someone who writes a lot of the lyrics, I’m constantly taking notes of different phrases, and ideas, and things that I’m thinking about and go back to that as I’m writing. As a band, sometimes I’ll bring a demo to the group and we’ll sort of figure out parts together, other times we’ll find ourselves in a bit of a jam at practice and one of us will take it away and put that together. Often Alex will send over some really cool riffs and that’ll be inspiring to me.”
Their singles, Severance and Kool Aid Blue, received warm reception leading up to the full album release, being favourably compared to bands such as Teenage Fanclub and The Bats. When asked what artists provided inspiration for the album Ubels said,
“I feel like there’s a lineage that maybe starts from the 60’s British invasion bands like The Kinks or The Beatles, or The Who, and it kind of goes through 70’s power pop like Big Star. Into the 80’s you’d have The Smiths or The Cure, into the 90’s you have Teenage Fanclub, The Stone Roses, Oasis, to more modern Artists taking on some guitar pop genres, Pains of Being Pure at Heart are a favourite, Beach Fossils always, I really love The Lemon Twigs. I feel like there’s a bit of this long history of artists working in that space. I think it’s interesting because on the new record, there are songs where I feel a bit of Radiohead influence, or personally I feel I can hear Bruce Springsteen on one of the songs. There are little pieces of inspiration I believe you can find anywhere. “
Vivian Elixir is one of The Sylvia Platters’ larger releases, allowing them to branch out both sound-wise and thematically; whereas previous recordings find themselves more or less thematically coherent. The newest record allowed space to express the band’s evolved sound and lyricism in a way that leaves more room for personal interpretation.
“I will say, on this record, there are a lot of different pieces about grappling with interpersonal connection and sort of self-discovery, self-destruction on an axis somehow,” said Ubels. “I tried to sort of make sense of a messed-up world we find ourselves in and figuring out a way to cope, I guess.”
He continues, saying, “All of those things are present, and the idea of Vivian Elixir is this promise of a cure or a solution that is going to give your life meaning or give your life a sense of purpose and it’s never really that simple. Something about the promise of that and the ways which that can play out through substances or putting too much into expectations around relationships or your work or all these other things that people tend to try to reach for. I think it’s sorting through some of those things, if not cataloguing them, kind of grappling with each of those pieces in some way.”
Vivian Elixir is available for streaming on all platforms.
Apple Music link: https://music.apple.com/ca/album/vivian-elixir/1739265339