Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

68447

news

Listen: The Anthem of Summer 2011 - 'Hawaiian Air' by Friendly Fires
sean by Sean Adams May 6th, 2011

Just a hunch but DiS reckons this song will be on the closing credits of this year's Glastonbury coverage, and on the closing credits of the FA Cup Final, and on the closing credits of Reading festival and probably, at some point, on Top Gear, Channel4 News, etc... and will undeniably feature on Radio1 about once an hour for the next four months, and it isn't unlikely that it'll be throbbing away in the background at school discos and during a terrible scene in The Only Way is Essex and/or Geordie Shore (this actually exists!).

On hearing it for the first time, in my track-by-track first listen piece, I attempted to describe this track as sounding like:

A gigantic single... if radio can play a racing tribal beat with whizzing whooshingness. Noticed a line about "watching a film with a talking dog..." and my brain starts wondering if there's a hidden Beethoven sample sprawling beneath it all.

I've subsequently listened to it on repeat enough times that I've felt the need to remove some plays from my Last.fm and blathered on and on about it on my Twitter. It's called 'Hawaiian Air', it's the second single from St Albans' DFA-gone-samba party-starters Friendly Fires' second album Pala, which is out a week on Monday. The album is glorious but this track, which is apparently the last one they recorded for the album, stands out from the rest of the record and I have no qualms in predicting it to be the anthem of summer 2011 (and probably a bunch of summers to come). It has that fizzy feeling of 'Paris' washed in sunshine and tropical textures, a cheeky rhyme of pounds and ground, and shoegaze-tinged guitars switched to simmer. It's summer in a can, from one of the UK's most exciting bands for many years (in my opinion!) and you can stop reading my words about it and bash play...

As I said, it's taken from their forthcoming Paul Epworth produced album Pala ,which is out on May 16th via XL. The album opens with 'Live Those Days Tonight', which has this awesome borrowed-nostalgia-for-the-unremembered-ravin'-80s video:

And you can hear track two from Pala, 'Blue Cassette' via this widget...



LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees

Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


Left-arrow

Young Knives, Liam Finn, ESP + more for Truck 2011

Mobback
68446

Survey says: Streaming Subscription Services like Spotify Are Too Expensive

Mobforward
68453
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE
Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND