Eastern Barbers document the changing city on ‘Blue Flakes’

Every weekday, DIY’s new music know-it-all Neu brings you one essential new release to get obsessed with. Today’s Neu Pick comes from Eastern Barbers.

Last year Ross Fernandez and brother James, the backbone of South London quartet Eastern Barbers, burst forth with ‘Get Loose’, a vividly painted picture of the modern landscape that spun day-to-day monotony in various dizzying directions. Now, after airing their track ‘Milk’ a little earlier in the year, they’re back to weave more tales of the city.

‘Blue Flakes’, out this Friday (24th November), continues their soundtrack to modern living in the metropolis, centring on the changing face of the environment around them. It’s a languid mix of jazz-inflected guitar melodies and lilting harmonies, wrapped up in a melancholic haze that effortlessly captures a sense of malaise but also manages to be warm and tender.

The band say that ‘Blue Flakes’ is “the simple strategy to cope with this idea that spaces are being diluted”. They continued: “You notice a lot of this stuff as you get older and it can be challenging to digest. When we were younger things felt simpler and in Blue Flakes we’re trying to revisit some of that innocence”.

Listen to ‘Blue Flakes’ below.