News Track By Track: Shinies - Tangle EP

Manchester-rooted nostalgists Shinies are releasing their new EP, ‘Tangle’, on 12th August. Before all this their music was rooted in an emotion-soaked teen angst, occasionally prone to foolish lust and so on. But ‘Tangle’ is the next step. You can’t stay moody teens forever, after all. Dirty Bingo release the EP, and Hookworms’ MJ has lent production duties. While they ought to give themselves some credit, the band claim: ‘We can’t even begin to think how it would sound without [MJ’s] input…It was such a buzz recording it with him and it helps a great deal when you’ve got someone who is into the songs that you’ve written.’

‘Tangle’, then, takes this bittersweet angst and sends it skywards. Songs are hoisted into into harsher, more sinister territory. Titles play to the senses - ‘Salt’, ‘Taste’, ‘Plasticine’, ‘Vitamins’ - but the songs themselves cater solely to the desire to hear something thriving in teen headiness, bursting at the seams.

DIY’s delighted to have the exclusive stream of ‘Tangle’, as well as a track-by-track guide from Shinies. Order ‘Tangle’ on 12’ vinyl now.



Taste
‘Taste’ is about the decay of a relationship in the simplest sense. About feeling frustrated and trapped but knowing you put yourself in that position in the first place. Be it a relationship with a person or a city or both. Falling in and out of love with a person and a place and all the memories and constant reminders that they hold. It was one of the most organic songs we wrote for the E.P in that it came purely from the four of us jamming it out until it became something tangible.

Salt
‘Salt’ follows a similar theme. ‘Our love dissolves like rocks to salt’. That feeling of excitement at the beginning of a relationship with someone but also with the realisation that as with everything it will come to end. It’s not a lamentation of this but more a celebration of the fickleness of young love and enjoying and celebrating the fact that it won’t last. Enjoying being tangled up in the beautiful mess but also being able to let it go.

Plasticine
‘Plasticine”s probably the most pop orientated song we’ve written, or at least set out to write until, like most of our stuff it gets distorted or warped. It’s the most mellow song we’ve every done I think, in terms of the verse’s at least, it’s very melancholic in that sense. At the same time it’s got a bit of a nasty edge to ‘I’ll try my best to bring you down’. Being spiteful for no reason apart from being spiteful. Which is a side that everyone has. A bit like ‘Taste’ it was initially pretty specific to Manchester and having a turbulent relationship with a place that you call home and the people around you. Living for a weekend and a scene that is pretty meaningless outside of your little bubble and being able to detach yourself from that or not.

Vitamins
‘Vitamins’ is basically about getting spangled and dealing with the morning or afternoon after the night before. Revelling in the state that you get your self in. Watching the walls crawl and seeing people in a different light when the sun starts to come up. The dependance of wanting to put something in your body that will alter your consciousness. A nice cheery number to end on.