Oh Wonder - Technicolour Beat

If you read the news last week that from this summer there will be a standardised worldwide new music release day of Friday and your thoughts were that this just shows what a dated construct the music industry has of what a release date is, then you were thinking the same way we did. Because let’s face it, new music is released every single day of the year. What the industry means is ‘on sale date’ rather than release date. Because once a track has been put up online, through Soundcloud, You Tube, Bandcamp or anywhere else and people can listen to it, it has been released, even if you can’t buy it. Anyone can get access to it as long as they can access the world wide web.

Right now there’s probably no better example of a band who are playing with that concept of 'release date' than Oh Wonder, the once mystery group who are no longer a mystery group - we explained all about who they were in this post here. They’re releasing one track every month for a year. Today being the 1st March means they have a new song to release, irrespective of the fact that you can’t yet buy it or what day of the week it is. After all you can already stream it through Spotify, Hype Machine or share it via the Soundcloud embed (below). This one has been well and truly released.

The IFPI, the worldwide body that represents the recording industry, has suggested that by changing release dates to Friday  “creates the opportunity to reignite excitement” around the release of music, which is basically marketing talk for ‘making it easier for record labels to hype a song’. But what the IFPI fails to recognise here is that music fans don’t just get excited about music on one day a week. We get excited about music every day of the week. Including Sunday’s.

So here’s the new Oh Wonder song. It’s called Technicolour Beat. From its title you might be expecting some sort of acid-house smiley face banger, but it’s another charmingly sweet and soft-hued electronic pop tune that fans of the duo will instantly recognise as the band’s style. They describe it as a song about catching a sunrise at a house party in Melbourne last year. If you're excited about it, why not give it some love on Hype Machine (here) and in your own small way give it the chance of even more people hearing it. 

Oh Wonder - Technicolour Beat