Tulipomania Presents Seahawks Remix of 'Don't Be So Sure' - A Song Reviewed by SongBlog

Philadelphia-based Tulipomania have announced they will release a new single, the Seahawks Remix of 'Don't Be So Sure'.

Seahawks is a duo made up of Jon Tye, founder of the legendary Lo Recordings and Pete Fowler, perhaps best known as illustrator of oh so many Super Furry Animals album sleeves. The duo are self-described purveyors of “psychedelic yacht rock, deck shoegaze, hazy beach pop vibrations, and marina drone”.

The original version of 'Don’t Be So Sure' featured on the band’s fourth album 'This Gilded Age' (2016). Tulipomania, whose name was inspired by the 1637 Dutch tulip market collapse, has been categorized as ‘cult synth punks’, ‘glam-leaning’, ‘postpunk’, ‘art rock’, and ‘muscular chamber pop’. Band members Tom Murray (lead vocals, bass, drums, guitar-organ) and Cheryl Gelover (synthesizer, background vocals) were joined by Mitch Smith (guitar, glockenspiel), who also contributed to the band's eponymous first album, Richard Hartline (piano, percussion, engineering and mastering), and Howard Thompson (executive producer).

This release features intriguing new artwork by legendary artist Vaughan Oliver, whose work they have long admired. Oliver gave distinct visual identities for 4AD releases by many bands, including Mojave 3, Lush, Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, in addition to numerous non-4AD artists such as David Sylvian. This release will also be accompanied by two new music videos, animated by Tulipomania themselves. The band's meticulous, mesmerizing videos augment the group’s artistry, involving painstaking frame-by-frame stop-motion animation techniques.

Gelover and Murray first met in Art school, and found themselves collaborating on projects for their Experimental Film and Animation classes. Tulipomania essentially grew along with these experiences. They were influenced by Talk Talk, the solo work by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene and many early 4AD bands, including Cocteau Twins and The Pixies. Described as “artistic and inventive”, the music videos created by Tulipomania have been featured in film festivals worldwide. ‘Don’t Be So Sure’ was the band’s first hand-painted animation, featuring multiple passes of brushwork shot on thousands of individual sheets of black paper, thereby allowing singing self-portraits to morph and dissolve in an atmospheric exploration of ambiguity. For the video made for the Seahawks Remix, the band re-photographed the original artwork, frame by frame, matching the new tempo and softer mood, which they felt also called for a more painterly, layered approach to the imagery.

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