The hybrid soul of Kane Place Record Club and the wide-eyed folk of The Gazettiers wouldn’t seem to have much in common. What’s more, combining elements from both groups wouldn’t seem to be the best idea. But college friends Nick Tovarek (Kane Place) and Shane English (Gazettiers) went ahead and did it anyway, retreating to their bedroom studios in 2013 to create music apart from their full-time groups. The results are surprising in terms of quality and genre: Unbend, the debut EP from the duo’s newly minted Dream Attics project, is a chilled-out electro-pop record in the spirit of Neon Indian and Passion Pit. It’s the kind of music that elicits descriptors like “dreamy” and “gauzy” from music writers because, let’s face it, this is dreamy, gauzy, stuff. It also happens to be quite good.
Mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Joe Lambert (Local Natives, Animal Collective), Unbend finds Tovarek’s minimalist beats and English’s falsetto-ready vocals expertly layered atop a mix of synth, guitar, and atmospheric haze. Stream the EP—featuring standout tracks “Like A Pretty Song” and “That’s The Secret, That’s The Key”—below.