Blue States - World Contact Day (Limited Edition Cream Vinyl)

Blue States returns with his sixth album titled World Contact Day, set for release via Memphis Industries on 18 March 2021 and named after the day each year on which UFO society International Flying Saucer Bureau tries to contact alien lifeform.

World Contact Day arrives six years after the previous Blue States album, written and recorded partly at Dragazis' Lightwell Recordings studio in Hackney featuring a combination of instrumental soundscapes and vocal songs that draw from influences as diverse as world as Morricone, Vangelis, Beak, Broadcast and The Carpenters. Songs on the new record feature guest vocals from the likes of Giampaolo Speziale and Federica Caiozzo of the Italian band, Malihini, English folk-musician, Rachael Dadd and Miami-based Allison May-Brice (The 18th Day Of May, Lake Ruth). Written under the backdrop of claustrophobic uncertainty and grief, Dragazis wanted to make an album of expansive escapism whilst also grounding musically in a more live approach than previous albums.

‘World Contact Day’ opens with ‘Plain Sight’, the first of the Rachael Dadd featuring songs, thematically about escape and setting Rachael’s Sandy Denny-a-like vocals to a baroque pop backing. It’s followed by an instrumental ode to the humble wire in a world of wireless connectivity (“I trust wires and I understand them” says Dragazis). The second Rachael Dadd’s up next is ‘Tides Confusion’, a song about how waves of grief can come like tides, grounded on a pulsating electronic loop that evolves into live drums, horns and backing vocals representing the rising water. Next up is ‘Warning Signs’ featuring Giampaolo and Federica of Malihini, a track about looking after yourself because if you don't, how can you look after anyone else? Two brilliant songs with Allison-May Brice light up side two of ‘World Contact Day’, the urgent, sparkling electronic pop of ‘Alarms’ and the epic, velvety torch song album closer ‘Science or Fiction?’ about the paleoanthropological fraudster Charles Dawson and the Piltdown Man hoax. Blue States returns with a fine collection of music, up there with the best of his work that blends soundtrack and song to brilliant effect. World Contact Day then, calling occupants of interplanetary craft from 18 March 2022.

1. Plain Sight

2. Trust In Wires

3. Tides Confusion

4. Warning Signs

5. Tiers

6. Serial Recall

7. The Sun Rose Twice

8. Alarms

9. Resting Heart

10. Science Or Fiction?