Empathy Test
Touring about & gaining the admiration & accolades from everyone from the Beeb to KCRW-London’s Empathy Test today proudly presents a first listen to their anticipated EP By My Side. Having enchanted & enamored with releases like Losing Touch, Throwing Stones & Demons—Isaac Howlett, Adam Relf with keyboard assists from Jacob Ferguson Lobo & percussion from Christina Lopez further expound on their vision of pop that dovetails nicely with nearly every Philip K. Dick novel/novella that has been turned into feature length film.
The electronic-emotional expressions begin with the title number “By My Side” that exhibits real time empathetic action in progress. Vampirical escapist overtones pour outward in ways that attempts to salvage relationship with reiterations of “we will always be friends” on the single “Vampire Town” that shines light on the sordid cities that we all want to get the hell away from. Remixes from New Portals take on the title track & discover new ambient terrain while Papertown adds new boisterous futurist synths to the equation of “Vampire Town”. Empathy Test introduces their By My Side EP with the following thoughts:
The title track “By My Side” is one of the darkest and most introspective songs Isaac has written. We performed it live a few times in a slightly truncated form, but Adam really fell in love with it and decided, rightly we hope, that the structure didn’t quite do it justice. He pulled out all the stops with the production, adding a break down and build which pushes everything to the limit. It’s an intense track to listen to, but we had the luxury of having a load of tracks finished, so we were able to pick and choose which track to go with it. “Vampire Town” is possibly the lightest, most pop track we’ve created, so it made sense to pair them together. After the suffocating intensity of By My Side, Vampire Town comes as a welcome relief both in the production and lyrically, offering a chance of redemption with its we will always be friends refrain.
