Sunday 20 April 2014

AViVAA - New Waves


When a band cites ‘reflections of Lana Del Rey and Alt-J’ as forming part of their sound they certainly know how to get us intrigued. Whilst we fail to see the Alt-J reference, 19 year old Aviva Payne and Matais Coulter from Sydney, Australia, who go by the name AViVAA certainly possess a little of Lana’s cooly jaded delivery. In fact if you hop over to their Soundcloud player (here) you’ll find they’ve covered one of Lana’s songs. Even as big fans of Miss Del Rey / Grant we’d probably baulk at yet another version of Video Games, but thankfully they haven't chosen the obvious one, instead they've uploaded a live recording of one of those ‘not officially released but everyone’s got it anyway’ tracks – Hundred Dollar Bill. The Lana comparisons don’t end there either – live video footage of the band (as well as shots on their Facebook) shows Aviva singing with a flower garland in her hair, rather like those early shots of Lana as she started the campaign for Video Games and the subsequent Born To Die album.

AViVAA are probably (no scrap that definitely) the only band we’ve ever featured on the blog that can claim to have had their debut single, the witchy sounding Reel Me In, used by an Australian BMX champion showing off his skills (here), but as it's had over 150,000 views it’s certainly decent exposure for the duo. It makes us wonder where or what unlikely video or advert their new song and second single XX will end up on. Let’s just hope it’s not a porn film, with some sad soul thinking the title is a reference to a double x rated movie; after all there’s plenty of lyrics about ‘wanting to kiss you’ and Aviva’s delivery has a certain soft-core sultriness to it. 

However, before we go too far off tangent, let’s be clear that XX is a well written song, with an indie-electronic wooziness and amorous beauty that marks AViVAA as ones to keep an eye and ear out for in the future. Take a listen to it below and let it embrace your ears.

AViVAA - XX

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