New Music: St Lucia - September

St Lucia is a band. Or rather, St Lucia is the stage name of Jean-Philip Grobler (try gargling that with your tea), and some of his mates from Brooklyn.

They're signed to Neon Gold Records - the label that launched Passion Pit, Ellie Goulding and The Naked & Famous - which should give you an idea of the sonic territory St Lucia operate in: Blissed out cerebral pop with a cool breeze of 80s synths.

What I like about Jean-Philip is that he fully acknowledges his debt to 80s pop, rather than wearing it as a badge of hipster ironic cool. Here he is talking to The Deli Magazine earlier this year.

I started making music when I was about 11 or 12 years old... I was really into Boyz II Men, Michael Jackson, Sting and Phil Collins. I was making these pop songs, I suppose in a sense similar to what I'm doing now, and at all times I had about three albums planned out that never came to fruition because, well, I was at school.

Seriously, which music fan didn't do this as a child? My first album, created when I was about eight, was called "The Ruby Rubik's Cube" - which, I have to say, seemed pretty awesome at the time.

After dabbling in alternative rock, and joining South Africa's Drakensberg Boys Choir School, Grobler remembered his love of big chunky 80s keyboards and sunny pop melodies. Which brings us to today, and St Lucia's new single, the appropriately-timed-and-titled September.



And if you liked that, you should check out Before The Dive, from the band's eponymous EP, which is available on iTunes now.

St Lucia - Before The Dive

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