Beyond the Wizards Sleeve releasing debut LP ft. Holly Miranda, Euros Childs & more (watch "Creation" video)

Beyond the Wizards Sleeve, aka the psych/dance duo of Erol Alkan and Richard Norris, will release their debut album, The Soft Bounce, on July 1 via Phantasy. The album ranges from stratospheric space rock to baroque pop to four-on-the-floor dance music (and one Eno-esque ambient zone-out), and features a number of special guests including Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci), Blaine Harrison (Mystery Jets), writer Jon Savage, Holly Miranda and, on tropicalia-tinged new single “Creation,” Jane Weaver and Hannah Peel. The video for “Creation,” a dreamlike film choreographed in black and white, was directed by Kieran Evans, one of five he’s making for the LP. He says:

In true Wizard logic, Creation is actually part 3 in a series of five shorts that make up our long-form film AndSoToSleep. The track has a great twisted psyche/calypso feel to it topped off with wonderful vocals from Jane Weaver and I immediately started thinking about some kind of weird dream dance sequences that could fit the rhythm and tempo of the song.

So drawing on strange music and dance numbers that appeared in a few French New Wave films from the 60s and the photography of Arthur Tress, we came up with the idea of seeing characters in an unusual space moving in a peculiar way whether it be a reversed movement or choreographed gesture.

We approached choreographer Alexandra Green with our ideas and she loved the challenge. So over a few weeks she and her dancers devised a series of dance routines that could be performed backwards or forwards. Two weeks later on set and as soon as we started shooting the dancers we knew we had something special and very trippy (which was Erol and Richards only request).

Check it out, along with The Soft Bounce‘s artwork and tracklist, below.

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Beyond the Wizards Sleeve – The Soft Bounce tracklist
1. Delicious Light
2. Iron Age
3. Creation
4. Door To Tomorrow
5. Diagram Girl
6. Black Crow
7. Tomorrow, Forever
8. The Soft Bounce
9. Finally First
10. Triumph
11. Third Mynd