The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The Stars EP

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are - along with their fellow Brooklyn scenesters The Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts - one of the buzz American bands of the moment. Tipped as one of five to watch in 2009 by Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber on ABC news, they’ve released a brilliant debut album, wowed the crowds at SXSW, Primavera, Roskilde and The Isle Of Wight festivals and picked up famous fans in the form of Little Boots, Tim Burgess and Nicky Wire. Plus they’ve stormed the UK with some incredible sold out tours, including a sell-out show at London’s 600 capacity Garage on their last UK trip. Thrilling and insouciantly cool, TPOBPAH might just be the most exciting indiepop band on the planet right now.  Within a year of releasing their blinding debut album (sure to pop up on many an end-of-year list), Brooklyn’s TPOBPAH are back with more: a full, five track EP of all-new material. Recorded by the same team behind the album, with US indie legend Archie Moore at the mixing desk, the new tracks were cut before the band’s latest tour.. Up first, the beautiful Higher Than The Stars is dream-pop of the highest order, polished to the highest sheen with some additional mixing effort from Rob Kirwan (Editors, U2). It also contains some of Kip’s most despairing and sombre lyrics: “Shitfaced, fumbling in a dark place/Drinking in the last days/This street looks just like the next street/Bumblefuck on repeat,” it says. We’re not sure what a bumblefuck is, but the song, says Kip, is about “growing up in the suburbs, the endless days and nights given to boredom and chemical and sexual experiments that inevitably end tragically.  It's about being young, falling in love with your best friend and the beautiful and terrible consequences of all that.” Next, 103 is raucous, fuzzy and a total earworm, and the closest thing on this EP to the sonic template of the album. It’s closely followed though by the pure 80s pop of Falling Over with its biting lyrics about “Spending time with someone who broke your heart long ago, who's trying to remove your pants in the present. Realising you have no self control, it's a plea that they exercise some”. Meanwhile, closing track Twins is “About finding someone that's just like you, only to realize you can never be together. It's not about incest.” There’s also a truly inspired Saint Etienne remix of Higher Than The Stars, proving once again that these four Brooklynites have been embraced by the indie aristocracy. Press / Radio : Key successes to date include: Pitchfork 8.4 album review and Best New Music, Features in The Times, The Guardian and the NME, Mojo Writer’s Choice No.1, Dazed Digital feature, Playlisted on NME Radio, Plays on BBC Radio One & Two (Steve Lamacq), XFM (John Kennedy), BBC 6music (Gideon Coe/Tom Robinson), Q Radio (Samanthi). Recent European tour included sold out dates across the UK, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. Tracklistings : 7" - 1. Higher Than The Stars 2. 103 3. Higher Than The Stars (Others In Conversation Remix) / 12" - 1. Higher Than The Stars 2. 103 3. Falling Over 4. Twins  / 12" Remix - 1. Higher Than The Stars (Saint Etienne Visits Lord Spank Remix) B1. Falling Over (DJ Downfall Sprechenbann Mix) B2. Higher Than The Stars (Skanfrom Remix) / CD - 1. Higher Than The Stars 2. 103 3. Falling Over 4. Twins 5. Higher Than The Stars (Saint Etienne Visits Lord Spank Remix)

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