New Music: Wyldest - The Sun Always Shines On TV

If you ask a random selection of people to name the best A-Ha song I pretty much guarantee that the majority of them will say the Norwegian band’s first hit and Guilty Pleasures club night favourite Take On Me. They’re wrong of course. The Sun Always Shines On TV, their second single and only UK number 1 was way superior. 

Why? Because it demonstrated that the band was far more than just a group trading on Morten Harket’s chiselled cheekbones and piercing stare. The Sun Always Shines On TV was a hugely ambitious song that owed as much to progressive rock as it did boy band pop and lyrically it was pretty deep - albeit expressed in simple language - a sad troubled call for help. It should be in every one of those best songs of the 80’s lists.

Now Breaking More Waves favourites Wyldest have put their spin on it. There’s none of the tense crashing sonic dynamic of the original though, instead Wyldest filter the song through a kaleidoscope of sadness. Pulsing electronics and sinister guitars are the order of the day here and (probably) quite unintentionally the group even give a small nod to Duran Duran’s Wild Boys with some miniature drum clatters. That's fine though, they were great drum clatters and I'm very partial to a sadcore tune or two. 

The song was exclusively recorded for a new compilation, Treacherous Tides Volume 2, from a label based in my home city of Portsmouth - Strong Island Recordings. I’ve been lucky enough to get to know Brad, the main man behind the label and his unstoppable commitment to promoting and supporting underground and independent music is incredible. Strong Island Recordings is a label that exists purely out of passion and therefore to ensure those enthusiasm levels remain we’d urge you to visit their Bandcamp (using this link) and grab a copy of this compilation, which also features another Breaking More Waves favourite (and Portsmouth’s most popular band right now) Kassassin Street. There's also plenty of psychedelic, shoegaze and stoner pop from the likes of Tasmanian quartet Violet Swells and Life Model from Glasgow. These bands are a long way from the clean cut sounds of A-Ha, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t and shouldn’t enjoy both. 

Wyldest - The Sun Always Shines On TV