PREMIERE: The Raveonettes - Z-Boys

Danish indie rock twosome Sune Rose Wagner and Sharon Foo, aka The Raveonettes, very sneakily released their well-received seventh studio full-length album, Pe‘ahi, a couple of days ago, and theMusic.com.au has the privilege of bringing you the lyric-video premiere of their dreamlike new cut Z-Boys.

Wagner and Foo have long honed their distinct flavour of noise-flecked, synth-shrouded indie rock, and Pe‘ahi finds them in perhaps their most reformed, darkly introspective form yet, informed by the death of Wagner’s father in 2013 - an event that (perhaps unexpectedly) saw the band swaddle themselves in Californian surf culture, even going so far as to name the album after a place on the island of Maui, Hawaii, which itself has lent its name to a big-wave surfing break that also goes by “Jaws”.

“At first, drawing parallels between a legendary and terrifying big-wave surfing spot and the sound that The Raveonettes make may seem like an odd correlation, other than the obvious touchstone of ‘surf music’ that occasionally seasons their work,” album producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen said of the record. “But as you listen, the real connection may become clearer.

“What I experienced, both during its creation and upon its completion, is a sensation of being ‘swept away’.  The music and its emotional effects are in real control, not the listener.  This was the feeling, sometimes even while we were deep in the actual making of it. 

“This album can lift you to exhilarating heights and speed atop its foamy wave crests, where you stand in blazing sunlight. Alternately, there are times when the music threatens to sink you terribly and violently into the lowest, darkest troughs.”

As for Z-Boys itself, which Meldal-Johnsen says “might be a personal favourite” of his, “it would seem to be about the glory days of skater culture in LA,” he said, “but you will find that it goes further.

“It speaks of those elusive, fleeting memories that escape just out of reach of your awareness, no matter how hard you try to recapture them. Then, without warning, a memory can re-emerge like a giant thunderclap, with eye-watering detail and cinematic drama, complete with all the joy and pain it may contain.”

You can buy yourself a copy of Pe’ahi right here.