Member Since: 4/9/2007
Band Website: www.cityofsatellites.com
Band Members: Jarrod Manuel
Thomas Diakomichalis
Influences: Sonic Youth, The Beach Boys, Mogwai, Talk Talk, Prince, M83, Angelo Badalamenti, Low, Motorpsycho, Genesis, Tears for Fears, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Simon and Garfunkel, Stereolab, Michael Jackson, Labradford, Slowdive, Peter Gabriel, Faith No More, Mojave 3, The Cars, Bruce Springsteen, Ride, Roy Orbison, Phil Collins, Neil Young, Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Cocteau Twins, Def Leppard, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Durutti Column, Aphex Twin, Seefeel, Brian Eno, Slowdive...
Sounds Like: The Spook available from:
Drum Media Perth - 22nd January 2009 - Single of the Week
...You know when you catch a faint smell of something that totally spins you out and reminds you of something you haven’t though about since you were six, completely changing your day? City of Satellites have synthesised this feeling into music. The Adelaide/Sydney duo’s debut EP plays out like a strange adventure through an exotic foreign city - without the implied pretentiousness. Opening track 'Moon in the Sea' carries faint traces of shoegaze heroes M83 and My Bloody Valentine, with faint, androgynous vocals drifting in and out of clarity over a dreamy soundscape. Though only three (long) tracks in length, The Spook is an emotionally exhausting and incredibly satisfying little trip...
Leonard's Lair - 21st December 2008 - http://leonardslair.wordpress.com
...'Moon in the Sea' begins with a densely-constructed introduction of drums, bass and synths, which soon allow Jarrod Manuel’s whispered vocals to make themselves known. Like the rest of the EP, there’s nothing immediate about this song but it becomes more involving after each listen. 'Sleeping Disgrace' uses a slow and deliberate rhythm with its languid guitar offering a fine counterpoint to Manuel’s falsetto, rather like a post-rock Scritti Politti. Finally, the EP’s title track shoots off into space with a gorgeous arrangement of uplifting guitars and effects. It’s the track which most openly reveals their shoegazing influences the but it’s also a song that seeks to embrace the future rather than churn up the past. City of Satellites create meticulously-constructed songs of mystery and drama and this is a brilliant start to their career...
Losing Today - 11th December 2008 - http://www.losingtoday.com
...City of Satellites craft out beautifully mellowing starry eyed dream weaving post rock sculptures that are delicately dimpled with shoe gaze and mid 80’s goth / 4AD styled dialects and lushly tendered with sweetly amorphous ambient trance lines, opening cut 'Moon in the Sea' is particularly sugared so, sounding at times like a distant cousin of Ecstasy of Saint Theresa being cosmically fused with 'Tin Drum' era Japan, the mood reclining, fragile and ethereally demurring. The seductively hollowing 'Sleeping Disgrace' tweaks on the heart strings a little firmer, introspective and bruised, this lulling lunatic slice orbiting post rock noodling sparseness unfurls as though like a forlorn Labradford being played at 45 instead of 33 whilst liltingly braided by trickling thaw like key swirls and Jarrod’s achingly melting feminine vocals. All said and though it’s the parting cut that seals the set, maybe it’s the dry iced cinematic tethered cavernous swathes that endow 'The Spook' with its lush defence surrendering sensibilities, all at once expansive and celestial, majestic and statue-esque that to these ears evoke some disarming frost tipped orbital manoeuvre being instigated by Chapterhouse and Slowdive. A gem...
Record Label: Hidden Shoal Recordings
Type of Label: Indie