Royel Jr’s Over by the Rain is a lethal dose of 80’s synth-pop, 90’s downtempo, and contemporary psychedelic rock smashing together in a sea of reverb and cosmic delay. Lead singer Roy Gilmartin and Producer Jacob Elias started this track out as a groovy 1.5 minute instrumental and evolved into a full-length dream rock banger in a matter of days.
They have a powerful message of self-acceptance distilled during Roy’s time in Hackney’s LGBTQI+ scene and injected into their music like phosphorescent anti-venom. You’ll see several releases from these guys before the year is out and some live performances TBC.
Cover art
The artwork used for the cover art comes from Toronto’s visual maverick Tristram Lansdowne. ‘The Visitor’ is part of the ‘Archimancy’ series of watercolours on paper, created between 2010-2013.
“Tristram Lansdowne’s practice explores the historical and cultural representations of organized space, considering the ways in which architecture is used to express desire and control. His recent works examine the psycho-spatial content of contemporary modernist housing, paying particular attention to the effects of globalized design culture and digital rendering technologies. Through his detailed watercolours, drawings, sculptures and prints, Lansdowne explores the construction of the house as an image, deconstructing the artifice of the surface by reproducing digital processes by hand.“ – Galerie Nicolas Robert
Production notes
These guys are good at getting things sounding loud and gritty in a really tasty way so to get the mix translating on multiple systems and still preserve that raw power took some thought.
The most complex part of the band’s sound is the way they layer vocals and reverbs. We spent a lot of time with side chain compression and gates to create reverbs that are only audible when they need to be, swelling and holding dynamically around the vocals. We also used layered samples to trigger different reverbs on alternate snares so the ambiance dances along to the program. The other essential ingredient to the band’s sound is that wonderful warmth and crunch. We made use of many delicious tape and transformer emulations to achieve this. Finally, we mastered the track into a Revox B77 tape machine, onto vintage Apex 456 grandmaster which gives the production that warm, silky analog sheen.
The band imbues all their productions with a progressive musicality and sense of technical adventure which makes it imaginative and exciting music to be a part of.
