Acceptable in the '80s

Sometimes, mood is everything. While music has the ability to change one’s mental state, it can also be influenced by it. In the case of Wake Up To The Waves, the debut offering from Dublin synth-powered duo Last Days Of 1984, your humble correspondent can attest that a pretty high fever and a rake of antibiotics greatly enhance an already immersive experience. A deceptive record, it manages to condense a tight narrative across just seven tracks. Occasionally, things blur into one great big space-age sprawl. Quite fun under the influence of medication!

“That’s probably the best way to listen to it,” laughs Darren Moloney over a coffee alongside bandmate Brian Rice, both looking way too fresh for two young men just back from a continental tour (their very first proper jaunt as a band) that took in France, Holland, Germany and the Czech Republic. The pair insist they were on their best behaviour on their travels, getting a feel for the grind and just taking it all in.
“Some of the venues were really cool,” recalls Darren. “We played this place in Bielefeld which was an underground bunker in World War II. You’re right on the floor in a lot of those venues, which is something that we really like because you’re more connected to the audience, being on ground level. There’s no separation. The stage in Bielefeld was actually in the middle of the room so there were people constantly around us.”
“We played that show on Good Friday and in Germany you’re actually allowed to buy alcohol on that day. But dancing is prohibited, which we didn’t realise until afterwards,” notes Brian. “We were dancing though. That’s our thing.”
It wasn’t always though, as both were raised on a diet of punk and post-hardcore, worshipping at the altar of Swing Kids, At The Drive-In and Blood Brothers. Formed in a bid to create the kind of music they wanted to dance to, Last Days seem keen to draw the listener into their world and keep them there for a time. Patience, it seems, is a virtue where Wake Up To The Waves is concerned.
“One of the starting points was ’90s dance music, and I guess you saw it a lot in shoegaze records from the late ’80s and early ’90s too, the whole idea that a song does its own thing and has time to breathe,” says Darren. “It also goes back to the influence of disco records, when the 7” wasn’t enough to keep a crowd dancing so you’d have to have a 12” to keep people up for about ten minutes. That was the idea, that the songs have a longer lifespan while you’re in them, a burst that you can get lost in.”
The pair’s appreciation for psychedelic manipulation extends to the visual, as evidenced by the dizzying accompanying promo for lead-off single ‘River’s Edge’. A fresh take on the usual ‘band play their instruments’ template, the kaleidoscopic clip intersperses shots of the guys in action with some pretty trippy dissolves. Helmed by French director Sophie Gateau – who previously provided videos for fellow Osaka Records alumni Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands – the eye-catching short has notched up over 23,000 views on Vimeo in just a few short weeks.
“It’s fucking insane,” laughs Darren. “For a stoner dance song! It’s just weird. Shooting the video was brilliant. We went over to Paris in February for a couple of days and we had a really curious experience with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, of all people. On our first night, we finished filming and went for a few beers – it was actually the anniversary of us starting to play music together. We were wrapping up the video and just threw some music on. I was playing some songs off the Max Romeo record War Ina Babylon [influential 1976 release produced by Perry], one of my favourite albums. We were talking about it later, just sitting on a wall, and this taxi pulls up and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry gets out! It was pretty bizarre, like some weird omen. We wanted to talk to him but we felt like dicks.”
“People went up to him before we got a chance to make our move so we thought it would just look stupid if we went up afterwards,” adds Brian.
Now back in more familiar surroundings, the twosome are aiming to establish themselves in an increasingly saturated market. As synth-based pop continues to pack out the clubs, there is a growing sense that the bubble might be about to burst any day now. Still, they don’t seem fazed.
“People have been saying that since I’ve been in bands playing synths,” nods Darren. “In 2003, you started to see a lot more synths coming in and everyone said they’d be gone in a year. Then in 2005 it was, ‘This is the end of the synth’. I don’t think it’s going to die. Everything evolves, right? It’s what you do with it and how interesting you make it. There are people doing amazing things with synths now. I haven’t seen any stigma really, apart from towards shit bands. There’s always stigma towards shit bands!”