Many artists these days exist in between genres, fusing various sonic elements and merging components and ideas from different musical lineages to create something new. This hybridisation begets sounds that don’t necessarily fit in anywhere in ordinary musical categorisation but, instead, seem to exist in liminal space, neither here nor there. This can be said of Nightbus, a Mancunian outfit whose electronic-indie sleaze sound is pioneering a space between categories and creating moods that feel both familiar and estranged.
In their new single, ‘Landslide’, Nightbus further demonstrate how to create a sound that exists perfectly in the in-between. It blends quantised drumbeats, shoegaze riffs and whispered vocals to create a mood that evokes the cinematic solitude of a late night drive or the dislocation of stepping out of a club and into some quiet streets, carrying the echo of loud music into a place it doesn’t belong.
This is when and why this single is most poignant. It thrives in both quiet and loud moments, and the moments in between; it’s music for thresholds. Describing the world their music inhabits, lead vocalist Olive Rees says “We’re travellers in our own bodies; there’s an alter-ego nurturing our secrets, fantasies, shame, and fears, lost in the underworld of humanity. A dreamscape of taboo existence”.
Nightbus invite a sense of disconnection in their music, like stepping outside yourself and drifting elsewhere. The music becomes both the passage to this “dreamscape”, and the “underworld” itself. There’s something Kafkaesque in the surreal detachment their sound evokes, like waking in a body that no longer feels your own, much like Gregor Samsa. But where Gregor faces uncanny horror, Nightbus offer a kind of numb tranquility.
Photo by Gina Darwin
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