WL//WH Video Premiere: SOFSKY escapes “Clusterphobia” with nostalgic bliss

WL//WH Premiere SOFSKY

Based in Lugano, Switzerland, SOFSKY is a five-piece combo featuring veteran musicians Stefano Chiassai (guitars), Giona Mattei (bass), Flavio Calaon (keys), Dimitri A. (drums) and Nick Poretti (vocals), hailing from a multifaceted assortment of underground rock bands (Klovo, Flanard, Shindo, Plain among others), who bring their wide range of experience, taste, and influence into a nostalgic retro video for the intoxicating Dream Pop tune, “Clusterphobia”, WL//WL is pleased to premiere, taken from Sofsky‘s eponymous debut full-length LP available on CD/digital platforms from today, March 25th, 2022, via Seahorse Recordings

After releasing 3 digital singles – now included as album’s bonus tracks – Sofsky recorded seven brand new songs at Laboratorio Sperimentazione Sonora Nitön in Barasso (Varese), with Luca Martegano and Enrico Mangione from La Sauna Studio taking production and mixing duties. Mastering was in charge of Tony Cousins at Metropolis Studios in London.

Taking their clues from early Pink Floyds’s psychedelia, ’80s post-punk (The Smiths, Joy Division), classic shoegaze (Slowdive, MBV), and of course, the post-rock influences already heard in Klovo (Mogwai, Sigur Ros), the group shift comfortably from contemporary sound production to the sonic landscapes of past decades, exploring spacious sonic nuances, laced with intense emotions and heartfelt feelings, through a myriad of shades hovering between black and white.

The song was born out of Sofsky’s very personal attitude towards the isolation we’ve all been forced to by the pandemic. Instead of considering it a torture to bear with despair, for them, it was instead a chance to stop the crazy life’s race and finally taste and enjoy the little things in life (less is more, that’s for sure). The video highlights this approach, using sequences from super 8 vintage films synchronised with music. The aim is to communicate nostalgic feelings for a lost everyday way of life so that the viewers can recall their own lost memories as well.

Immersive escapist moods compel sad, meandering guitar melodies to ripple seductive melancholy through sturdy scattered percussions, droning floating string swathes, sinuously lush glimmering keys and simmering bass lines to coalesce in an expanding horizon of slow swaying enveloping poignant and radiant textures around atmospheric breathes of agony and ecstasy transforming modern dystopic symbols into a lost confession of unsettled fear.

A sentimental video, created by Niccolò Castelli from an idea by Anna Bernasconi, blends Vintage Super 8 imagery from private persons and REC Lugano into a surreal escape back to the 1970s. Bright eyes and laughing smiles sync with a dreamy flow of sonic waves to transport the viewer into the changing seasons and recreational terrains of European family adventures, leaving cherished memories for a distant era.

SOFSKY LP cover

Sofsky‘s eponymous debut album is available on digital platforms from March 25th, 2022, published by Seahorse Recordings (CD & Digital) and distributed by Audioglobe / The Orchard.

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