Photo: Anna Haas
DEBUT LP ARCADE BACK IN MANITOU
OUT ON NOVEMBER 12TH
LISTEN: “GLITTER ON THE DRUM”
Today, with the release of lead single “Glitter On The Drum,” Nashville-based band Wild Heart Club has announced their debut LP Arcade Back In Manitou, due out November 12th. The song, which feels like mourning the loss of a lover while soaring across a roller-rink under twinkling lights, was inspired by a YouTube comment on a Robyn video. The music sparkles, but its glittery edges are sharp.
“She creates irresistibly fascinating indie-pop, by blending elements from different kinds of genres, freely employing digital and analog tools as needed,” noted glamglare of Kristen Castro, the creative force behind the band. “While many artists these days tend to take from different musical styles and using a plethora of different instruments, Castro stands out. Her songwriting comes from a personal place but its message is universally understood. She manages to offer intimacy with her soothing, reassuring vocals yet also keeps us on the edge. Most notably thanks to her stellar guitar work which takes on new heights in the magnificent ‘Glitter on the Drum.’”
“‘Glitter on the Drum’ started as a guitar melody in the middle of night when I couldn’t sleep,” says Castro. “I was channeling Maja Ivarsson from The Sounds and Warpaint when I was writing the song and the word glitter came out of nowhere. I grew up listening to a lot of disco unwillingly whenever my dad worked out in the garage so I have a lot of subconscious 80s influences. I found a disco drum beat in Logic and that became the backbone of the song. I was listening to a lot of Robyn at the time and a person commented on her video saying she’s the only one who makes them cry on the dance floor,” she adds. “That was the pulse of the song, self-talk and crying on the dance floor.”
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Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kristen Castro is a genre-crossing artist known for blending a surprising range of electronic, digital, and analog elements into her dreamy, atmospheric indie-pop. She built a name for herself as an independent solo artist with a penchant for electric guitar, a dark sensibility, and a bracing tenderness reminiscent of acts like the Cocteau Twins.
Transforming abstract emotion into compelling music, her early releases feature everything from mandolin to bass, piano to synth, banjo to drum programming, in songs that feel both effortless and complex at the same time. Castro’s latest project, Wild Heart Club, builds off the hybrid style of her solo work, evolving her eclectic foundations into an even more distinct and cohesive sound. The synth-heavy, guitar-driven soundscapes are laced with Castro’s breezy, candied vocals: think Sigur Rós meets Heart. It’s a strange and compelling combination that feels right for the current moment.
“I’ve always been drawn to people who aren’t in the cool club—the weirdos embracing their weirdness. This is music for them, as always.” Written, recorded, and produced primarily by Castro herself, Wild Heart Club’s debut album Arcade Back in Manitou is set for release this fall.
Castro started writing the songs that would become Arcade Back in Manitou in January 2020, while living with her brother in L.A. and recovering from heartache after a particularly difficult breakup. She was also navigating the breakup of her band and listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Gypsy on repeat.
Named for a happy memory (visiting a Colorado penny arcade with an ex), Arcade Back in Manitou is an ethereal and lush collection of melancholy songs with a brilliant gloss of retro sheen. The resulting music feels unexpectedly bright, like walking through a clean, sunlit, white-tiled mall in the glowy light of a sitcom flashback. Throughout the album, there’s a genuine and hopeful engagement with the positive, a buoyant, almost-ironic sense of cheer teeming from the instrumentation, and a spirit of experimentation and discovery, despite the themes of loss the lyrics explore.
Hints of 80s plastic-pop and elements of 90s alternative cool are nestled in the mix, as well as nods to vintage and modern Swedish pop acts like Robyn, Léon, and ABBA. “I want to be the artist who can make you cry on the dance floor. I like songs that pair darker thoughts with happy vibes. Emotions are complex. It feels right to have that kind of complicated juxtaposition play out in music,” she says. “It feels honest.”
ARCADE BACK IN MANITOU TRACK LISTING
Her, If Losing You Had A Sound
Arcade Back In Manitou
Unhappy
Glitter On The Drum
Ever You Go
Down From The Heavens
Chemistry
Tupelo Honey
Rainbow
Overflow (Ruled by Saturn)