“DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS” & “UNHAPPY” OUT TODAY
DEBUT LP ARCADE BACK IN MANITOU
OUT ON NOVEMBER 12TH
Photo by Anna Haas
LISTEN // WATCH: “DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS”
LISTEN: “UNHAPPY”
Today, Nashville-based dream pop outfit Wild Heart Club has unveiled two singles - “Down From The Heavens” and “Unhappy” - from their debut LP Arcade Back In Manitou, due out November 12th.
“‘Down From the Heavens’ is about all the build up I’ve had about being gay since I was a teenager,” says Kristen Castro, the creative force behind Wild Heart Club. “Love is hard enough and then when you add being queer, it’s even harder. One time I played with my ex who used to sing at a church and it was such a bizarre experience watching all the people in the pews sing along to a girl who was in love with me but was also keeping me a secret,” explains Castro. “I had this vision of a god wrapped in color walking up to my ex and basically saying fuck it, go and love her, she’s more than a secret.” Castro also created a beautiful live acoustic performance video to accompany the single.
“Unhappy” was inspired by Castro’s childhood, where she fondly recalls hearing her brother’s hip hop music through the wall. “I really admired the freedom in 90s R&B to use unconventional sounds and the hypnotic feel of 90s hip-hop lo-fi beats like The Fugees and 2Pac,” she says. “I was staying with my brother when I made the songs and being around that music again created a new way for me to talk about the blurred lines in toxic relationships".
“Down From the Heavens” and “Unhappy” follow the release of lead single “Glitter On the Drum,” a track that feels like mourning the loss of a lover while soaring across a roller-rink under twinkling lights and that was inspired by a YouTube comment on a Robyn video. The music sparkles, but its glittery edges are sharp.
LISTEN: “GLITTER ON THE DRUM”
Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kristen Castro is a genre-crossing artist known for blending a surprising range of electronic, digital, and analog elements into her dreamy, atmospheric indie-pop. She built a name for herself as an independent solo artist with a penchant for electric guitar, a dark sensibility, and a bracing tenderness reminiscent of acts like the Cocteau Twins.
Transforming abstract emotion into compelling music, her early releases feature everything from mandolin to bass, piano to synth, banjo to drum programming, in songs that feel both effortless and complex at the same time. Castro’s latest project, Wild Heart Club, builds off the hybrid style of her solo work, evolving her eclectic foundations into an even more distinct and cohesive sound. The synth-heavy, guitar-driven soundscapes are laced with Castro’s breezy, candied vocals: think Sigur Rós meets Heart. It’s a strange and compelling combination that feels right for the current moment.
“I’ve always been drawn to people who aren’t in the cool club—the weirdos embracing their weirdness. This is music for them, as always.” Written, recorded, and produced primarily by Castro herself, Wild Heart Club’s debut album Arcade Back in Manitou is set for release this fall.
Castro started writing the songs that would become Arcade Back in Manitou in January 2020, while living with her brother in L.A. and recovering from heartache after a particularly difficult breakup. She was also navigating the breakup of her band and listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Gypsy on repeat.
Named for a happy memory (visiting a Colorado penny arcade with an ex), Arcade Back in Manitou is an ethereal and lush collection of melancholy songs with a brilliant gloss of retro sheen. The resulting music feels unexpectedly bright, like walking through a clean, sunlit, white-tiled mall in the glowy light of a sitcom flashback. Throughout the album, there’s a genuine and hopeful engagement with the positive, a buoyant, almost-ironic sense of cheer teeming from the instrumentation, and a spirit of experimentation and discovery, despite the themes of loss the lyrics explore.
Hints of 80s plastic-pop and elements of 90s alternative cool are nestled in the mix, as well as nods to vintage and modern Swedish pop acts like Robyn, Léon, and ABBA. “I want to be the artist who can make you cry on the dance floor. I like songs that pair darker thoughts with happy vibes. Emotions are complex. It feels right to have that kind of complicated juxtaposition play out in music,” she says. “It feels honest.”