Showcase: White Sails
Published on May 25th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams
Rocksucker was quite taken with the psych-tinged splendour of White Sails, so we fired some questions over to guitarist/keyboardist Ville Vilpponen to find out more…
How would you describe your music, if pushed?
Dreamy late-’60s/early-’70s-influenced rock with additional atmospherics for the curious.
Where are you based, and what do you use to record with?
San Francisco Bay Area, USA. Instruments mostly, microphones… stuff like that.
Are you signed to a label? If so, how did you come to their attention?
We have our own label, Ruska Records. Well, we own a part of it.
Is there a full album in the works? If so, what can you tell us about it? (Feel free to be as abstract as you like…)
The debut full-length CD is out now actually. It’s material that me (Ville, guitar) and Jaakko (drums) recorded in my Berkeley, CA studio between various other commitments. We knew that we had something special, but ultimately incomplete. Enter Leigh, who gave the pieces a purpose by adding his lyrics and voice in the mix and thus the White Sails debut was born. It’s a journey of reflection and longing in a bittersweet moment of time. Good music in there too!
Where can we hear your music online?
www.ruskarecords.com/white-sails
Which have been your most exciting gigs and/or overall moments so far?
We played some real nice shows on the East Coast of USA and California when we were still called Memory’s Mystic Band. The relatively fast completion of our debut showed us that just when you think that you’re forever lost in a dry desert, a big wave can appear out of nowhere and take you where you never knew that you were going but ultimately belong.
Got any more coming up? (Gigs, that is…)
Gigs for late August are planned for the UK. We just finished mixing an instrumental EP that will be out on glorious vinyl 7″ around that time
Are there any obscure and/or up-and-coming acts that you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?
Check out Nick Leese’s Heyday Mail Order @ heyday-mo.co.uk – he writes a blog regularly and can turn you on to some fantastic music that you didn’t know existed. Also, for vinyl enthusiasts with a taste for psychedelic there’s no better label than Fruits de Mer Records. Their website: www.fruitsdemerrecords.com
Finally, if you were forced to spend the rest of your days in solitary confinement, but were allowed to bring the entire works of five different artists along to tide you over, whose would you choose?
Neil Young (includes Buffalo Springfield and CSNY et al of course), Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pink Floyd, Aki Kaurismäki… I guess that’s only four – I’ll get back to you.
White Sails, thank you.
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