Plastic Mermaids have just revealed a brand-new video for latest single ‘Taxonomy,’ taken from their much-awaited debut album, ‘Suddenly Everyone Explodes’, which came out Friday 24 May via Sunday Best Recordings.
They have also announced several concert dates throughout the year including an appearance at Patterns in Brighton on Saturday 21st September. Grab your tickets HERE.
The video for ‘Taxonomy’ is a genius self-produced clay animation in the style of Bruce Bickford who crafted all the classic animations for Frank Zappa. Due to time restraints and the labour-intensive side of the actual clay modelling, the band decided to rope in Plastic Mermaids fans to help out via social media.
“I’m pretty sure Bruce Bickford spent years on each video though, so we knew ours wasn’t going to be quite as good,” Jamie from the band explains, “We committed to the idea, then Doug did some maths and realised that, if we shot one frame every minute, it was going to take us 54 hours of constant animation. Not wanting to die of exhaustion, we decided to put a message out on our socials to see if we could get any extra helpers and we had about twenty Plastic Mermaids fans (of all ages) come and help us with the model-making and animating. It was still a pretty intense experience, trying to average one frame every thirty seconds and, if we hadn’t had anyone help us, we’d probably still be animating now! Strangely enough, we found out that Bruce Bickford died when we were half way through making the video so. although we couldn’t possibly achieve anything on his level of animation, it still felt like a nice (strange) little tribute.”
Recent tracks revealed from their new album include ‘1996’, ‘Floating In A Vacuum’ and previous single ‘I Still Like Kelis’, all of which have been warmly received by fans and critics alike, supported at radio by BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, Huw Stephens, John Kennedy from Radio X (including a recent Xposure live session), BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne & Chris Hawkins.
“This album has been a long time coming,” reflects Doug, “and it feels great to have it finally released. After three years of jamming, writing, debating, recording, gigging, multiple games of Worms and copious caffeinated beverages we finally ended at this point. The album as whole has a broad twist of genres, vibes and sounds, I guess it shows the eclectic influences and the love we have for shovelling all sorts of music into our heads. “
In terms of musical influences, fans of The Flaming Lips, Arcade Fire, Sparklehorse and Tame Impala will all find something to love in Plastic Mermaids’ richly-textured sound. This is amplified by their ecstatic live show, which often sees band members swap instruments on-stage, take violin bows to guitars and use megaphones to twist their sound. Their sparkly-gold cape adorned choir and mascot in the form of a mannequin covered head to toe in mirror ball tiles also nod to their sense of fun and adventure.
Most bands wouldn’t go to those sorts of lengths for their art, but Plastic Mermaids aren’t like most bands. More than just a record, they have created their own very idiosyncratic world. On ‘Suddenly Everyone Explodes’, you can explore it for yourself.
You can catch Plastic Mermaids live at the following UK dates:
29 May – Southsea Pie & Vinyl (instore gig)
30 May – London Rough Trade East (instore gig)
2 June – Redruth – The Great Estate Festival
4 June – Bristol Rough Trade (instore gig)
16 June – Isle Of Wight Festival (Kashmir Café)
9 August – Newquay – Boardmasters Festival
25 August – Southsea – Victorious Festival
14 September – Isle Of Wight – Tapnell Farm
18 September – Stockton-On-Tees – The Georgian Theatre
20 September – Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
21 September – Brighton Patterns
23 September – Nottingham Bodega
24 September – Newcastle Think Tank
25 September – Glasgow Hug & Pint
26 September – Manchester YES (Pink Room)
28 September – Leeds Hyde Park Book Club
30 September – Birmingham Sunflower Lounge
1 October – Bristol Crofters Rights
2 October – Oxford Bullingdon
3 October – London Scala
More info on the Plastic Mermaids below:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Visit and ‘LIKE’ our ‘What’s On – from Brighton and Hove News’ Facebook page HERE.
