[Introducing] – Sweet Lights

There was a band a few years back called Cotton Mather who I was turned onto by Noel Gallagher after he proclaimed their brilliance on an early morning TV show in the U.K.

Being the loyal Oasis follower that I was back then I swiftly ran out to find their CD, mainly because he likened them to The Beatles.  The band became semi-successful in the U.K., supporting Oasis and being lauded by the British hype machine, but what really sticks out about them to me is how much they sounded like The Beatles.  Popular music these days is very easily tracked back to The Beatles, who can also be tracked back to the early days of rock and roll and even further back to Jazz and Blues, and that’s where the tie-in to Sweet Lights comes up.

Whilst not sounding anything like a rip-off of The Beatles or even just drawing heavily from them, the one-man band (Shai Halperin) from Philly wraps his own sound and feeling around tiny little fractures of some of the best music from the 60s, from The Beatles to The Beach Boys, Traffic to The Small Faces, and updating them with a twist on the modern pop song, adding slices of ’80s twinkly piano runs or today’s cascading waterfall synths.

His self-titled debut album is out now and can be had for the paltry sum of $7, but you can also hear the entire thing before you buy it and some of the tracks are even available as a free download, and if you check out his Vimeo page he has a bunch of videos for some of his tunes too.

Keep up to date with Sweet Lights – Twitter | Bandcamp | Vimeo

Sweet Lights – “Are We Gonna Work It Out”
Sweet Lights – “Message On The Wire”
Sweet Lights – “Waterwell”