Listen: Sur Back - "Nostalgia in Motion"

After the release of her follow up to her debut EP Kitsch last year, the appropriately titled Kitsch II, singer/songwriter Caroline Sans notably marked almost half a decade of intensive creative labor with a surprising amount to show of it. Several of the EPs songs had existed for several years since the very formation of her project Sur Back, surviving delays, setbacks and reworkings, and though Sans has been offering work at somewhat more consistent speed than before, hers is delicate work that benefits from the passage of time.

Like much of Sans' oevre, "Nostalgia In Motion" has been a work in progress several years in the making, meticulously thought artfully sculpted over a period of about three years while Sans was still based in Florida. From its fluttering start, "Nostalgia In Motion" is bright and expansive with elements of Sur Back's darker baroque pop turns - enriching it into a multifaceted piece of layered electronic pop.

With "Nostalgia In Motion", Sans continues her winning streak, crafting a song of arresting beauty that conveys meaning less through lyrical content and more through its production. Sans vocals are as richly colored as her brass riffs, her stutter-stop drums. "And I keep calling you back to show I'm not your nostalgia in motion" Sans coos and though the lyrics read as a sort of kiss off, Sans delivers them with a gentle caress, like sun steaming into a bedroom window. It's not meant to be a harsh wake up, but a soft rousing to exist in the present.

The lyrics all seem to build to this titular moment, the production following suit, and it's evident the idea means a lot to Sans; of not merely functioning as a walking, talking embodiment of good times past but wanting to be an active participant in life for better or worse. To weather whatever storms live may bring despite uncertain or a lack of control. "I can't hold on like I'm used to" Sans sings with an aching tenderness before "I'm not your nostalgia" hits like an ocean wave.

Sur Back's new single "Nostalgia in Motion" is out now. Sans is playing a single release show with Den-Mate, NOIEA, and Rare DM at Alphaville in Brooklyn on July 18th. Tickets and details available here.

Sur Back - Kitsch II EP (2018)

Following lead singles "Valentino" and "Anyone Else", Kitsch II, the second release from newly Brooklyn based singer/songwriter/producer Caroline Sans aka Sur Back arrives to further fill in Sans' pastel colored musical tapestries. Sans' new record essentially picks up right from where the last one left off as "Kitsch" with its cherry red flush, sultry coo, and stately strings conjure the same bold colorings as the incendiary album opener "Valentino".


"Valentino" marks a welcome departure from the softer, gentler sounds of Kitsch's "Trophy Daughter" and "Pastel". While Sans' use of orchestral accompaniment have largely been subtler and more ornamental in previous ventures, on "Valentino" Sans makes them an inseparable part of the song's framework. Beginning with a horn swell and pizzicato strings before the entrance of glitchy, clattering drum beats, "Valentino" sees Sans' more effortlessly blurring the lines between orchestral and electronic while still allowing room for her feather-light vocals and angular guitar to perform serpentine formations and craning sighs. Perhaps more so than any other of her works, "Valentino" is a feat of daring requiring such flawlessly executed production to pull off. Unsurprisingly, Sans' is exceptionally familiar at writing/producing for herself and employs an impressive balance between the track's various moving parts.

While "Valentino" and "Kitsch" make extensive use of strings and brass, "Anyone Else" sees Sans full-on embracing her composer ambitions. The first of a multi-movement work split between it and its following "Providence",  "Anyone Else" is a much subtler blend of strings and synths than Kitsch II cuts "Valentino" or "Jane Eyre", despite it's dramatic sweeps, it sees Sans at her gentlest and most tender as she sings of the purity of her love with both beguilingly reverent preciousness and a sense of fervor.

"Providence", a continuation of "Anyone Else", sees Sans' embracing a looser narrative form than "Anyone Else". "Providence" begins with a dramatic languorous opening that has Sans' cooing "Though honey we were just having fun" with a syrupy drawl that previews the track's later chorus. Pulsing synths and brass segue to the piece's first major section that continues Sans' honeyed delivery "A kiss before you go, it's the blaring red of brake lights fading ever fast as we shift back into drive" Sans sings with a luxuriating affect. Far more than its partner "Anyone Else", "Providence" is more compositionally complex as Sans seamlessly shifts between the song's various contrasting sections before eventually melding them all together at the song's climax. 

Album ender "Jane Eyre", Sans' first official single under the Sur Back moniker, finds new life on Kitsch II as it's bolder stylistic choices are more in line with this batch of songs than those of her previous EP. With its stuttering melodies and slightly off-kilter rhythm, "Jane Eyre" finds Sans' operating at peak at the very beginning of her career. Sans' blends synth, guitar, brass and drum samples, all in asymmetrical meter along with flowing, smooth as silk vocals to form a pristinely plotted dark pop gem.

Kitsch II marks an ambitious next step for Sans after an already strong debut in Kitsch. Featuring some of  Sans' earliest musical sketches flushed out and pursued to their fullest potential, Kitsch II further establishes Sans as a gifted producer capable of making deeply arresting musical documents that effortlessly evade the very notion of genre. Time has served her exceptionally well, heightening not only her production talents but her artistic sensibilities as she creates an absolutely immersive record positively overflowing with winsome moments of pitch perfect songcraft. With the release of her new EP, there's no telling when we'll next hear from Sans but when we do, it's sure to be with as flawlessly executed a work as Kitsch II.



Sur Back's sophomore EP Kitsch II is out February 23rd.

Listen: Sur Back - "Anyone Else"

photo by Cate Sans

Caroline Sans, the self-taught musician and producer behind Sur Back, has made much of her young career a balancing act not only between musical realms - the sumptuousness of classical paired with the abrasiveness of rock but also the quiet subversion of expectations in both song composition and lyrical content that she's a particular hard subject to pin down to specific labels. There's no denying that her sound is beguilingly unique. From the fuzzed-out guitars or stuttering beats of "Trophy Daughter" and "Pastel" to the orchestral sweeps of "Kitsch" and "Valentino", Sans has managed to display a dynamic sense of versatility, carving out a varied style all her own that doesn't sacrifice cohesiveness. 

"Anyone Else", the second single from Sur Back's upcoming follow up EP Kitsch II, finds Sans at her most delicate and yet, her most ambitious. One of her first ever songs when she first began her Sur Back project after moving from Palm Spring Gardens to Jupiter, Florida, "Anyone Else" is perhaps the song that's undergone the most drastic update going from a solo guitar ballad to all out compositional masterwork that sees Sans effortlessly interweaving strings with gently pulsing synths to create additional layers of harmonic consonance and textural depth.

 While "Valentino" swayed between powerful brass and ornate strings with bombastic percussion and jagged guitars, "Anyone Else" leans full tilt into Sans' symphonic sensibilities. While Sans has never shied away from the subject of desire (take the sighing "Occam's Razor" or the sultry whisper of "Kitsch") "Anyone Else" stands out for being perhaps the most reverent of it. "Anyone Else" is a love song, full of idyllic splendor as its orchestral lushness instantly recalls a pastoral picnic sojourn away from the noise of the busy city. The first part of a multi-movement work she split between this track and it's successor "Providence", is a tenderhearted exploration of the effervescence of a pure, genuine love. 

Despite its compositional complexity, it's a work of remarkably subtler production as Sans allows her arrangements and her own featherweight voice to do much of the work in lieu of her normal proclivities for contrast. It's most winsome moments lie in its softness, in its wholehearted embrace of the delicate, often fleeting nature of those little epiphanic moments - the way the light catches their eye or the wind their hair that have you convinced you couldn't love a person anymore. Sans elevates these seemingly tiny instances to magic moments of grandeur and awe even engaging in her natural dramatic flair with an attention grabbing grand pause.

With each release, Sans provides evermore reasons to fall in love with her distinct brand of angular but lush experimental pop and "Anyone Else" is no exception. While recalling the supple pastels of Kitsch, it still adds a new dimension to Sur Back as a producer/composer/arrange capable of conjuring moments of endearing gentleness. It's an absolutely thrilling reveal and one that I'm sure Sans is sure to expound on in ways that'll surprise. Until that moment, "Anyone Else" does that plenty. 



Kitsch II, the sophomore EP from Sur Back is out February 23rd.

Listen: Sur Back - "Valentino"

photo by Frank Corr

It's been awhile since we've heard from Jupiter, Florida based singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Caroline Sans' Sur Back project. Since the release of her debut EP Kitsch back in the summer of 2016, she's been hard at work on a follow up as well as relocating to Brooklyn. New single "Valentino" is a least a taste of what Sans' has been cooking up in her nearly two years away and it's appropriately lush. From its forceful crescendo to its pizzicato string entrance, Sans' has her sights set on a decadent sense of drama that's as luxurious as its title suggests. That's hardly a surprise, considering Sans wrote it with fashion shows in mind. "Valentino" is her offering to the intersection between fashion and pop music that's been popularized by everyone from Lady Gaga to indie stalwarts Bjork and St. Vincent. A score to imaginary fashion show, it manages to fit into the often strange, poised world of high fashion while also setting itself apart from it both lyrically and compositionally.

Sans' production is a delicate mixture of orchestral lushness with strings and brass, cacophonous percussion, and her trademark svelte vocals. It's wonderfully theatrical in its sense of unpredictability as it sways with steely-eyed confidence on its haunches with a dangerous unease. "Valentino" is the soundtrack for a bad ass femme fatale, disarming with an intoxicating rush of sounds before revealing its hand in a series of deft sleight-of-hand counter maneuvers. Sans' deploys her guitar as a weapon, agitating the smoothness of her vocal lines, and the innate delicateness of strings into harsh spikes in sound. "Valentino, I don't want your love" Sans coos and it's a line whose impact is amplified both by its casual delivery and as the offered balm to surrounding abrasiveness.



Sans proved herself a talented producer on her on standalone single "Jane Eyre" as well as her versatile debut Kitsch and "Valentino" displays more of her winsome skills in spades as she creates a track with such a strong extrasensory ability. "Valentino" is an aural rendering of opulence, conjuring up much like "Kitsch", bold reds and fine silks but also the barely concealed darkness that seems to exist under facades of class. It's a strong effort that provides a dazzling reintroduction to Sans' Sur Back. Here's hoping its not too long before Sans returns with more.

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Sur Back - Kitsch EP (2016)

From the opening trumpet fanfare of her first single "Jane Eyre", I knew Jupiter, Florida based singer/songwriter/producer Sur Back was going to be the type of artist that would be thrilling to watch grow. Not because Caroline Sans had a lot of growing to do but more her ideas - in the case of "Jane Eyre" a fearless dive into complicated meter, were sure to get more fascinating over time and with additional input. While I knew producing was an underrated labor of love where slight, incremental progress could be measured in years, I still let myself hope that Sans' debut album was soon to follow. Ultimately the wait wasn't too torturous and this year, a little over two years after the official release of her first single, Sans' debut EP Kitsch is out and well worth the wait.

Kitsch with its four tracks allows itself to be brief but that hardly blunts the force of its arrival or the sharpness of its construction. Sans has established rather early with "Jane Eyre" and second single "Occam's  Razor", which opens the EP, a tendency towards luxurious craning vocals that belie the simple utility of her production. Sans' approach favors deft over decadence; sparsity over the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach without sacrificing lushness. Kitsch is a collection of smooth, flowing songs that highlights the talent of Sans' one-woman show as "Pastel" and album ender/title track "Kitsch" feature perfectly deployed strings that catapult her songs to peak emotional effectiveness. But "Kitsch" with its slavic romance feel and sultry slow-burning delivery and "Pastel" do impressively different things with their strings. On "Pastel", Sans' strings are merely a part of din; an elegant textural choice in the climactic cacophony of its race to the finish instead of the deflating sighs towards quiet entropy in "Kitsch".

Kitsch may be brief but functions as an utterly thrilling introduction to Caroline Sans and the movement and classical music inspired vision that informs her work as Sur Back. Each song on Kitsch functions separately as a sort of expressive mood piece tailor made for the soundtrack of the listener's life. Sans' maximalist tendencies are obscured by the effortless stitching together of multitudinous layers result in visceral images presented with beguiling ease. None of the EP's four tracks resemble Sans' first single "Jane Eyre" (the only song not to make it on the EP) and Kitsch is all the more better for it - pushing Sans' in exciting and largely unexpected new directions for the listener. With plans for a new EP percolating no one can really tell where Sans is off  to creatively but if her continued growth resembles anything like the  lead up to Kitsch it's bound to be incredibly entertaining, wonderfully cinematic, and entirely worth the wait.



Sur Back's debut EP Kitsch is out now.

Listen/Watch: Sur Back - "Trophy Daughter"

After a fair bit of teasing with previous singles "Jane Eyre" and "Occam's Razor", Jupiter, Florida based one-woman outfit Sur Back has a brand new single out in the form of "Trophy Daughter". And with it, some equally exciting news that her debut record Kitsch, an album she's been promising for at least the past two years, will finally see the light of day next month.

Falling in love with Caroline San's music since she released her debut single "Jane Eyre" back in mid 2014, and even more so after being asked to co-premiere its thrilling music video, "Trophy Daughter" shows that Sans is a highly capable artist capable of beguiling versatility. Unlike "Jane Eyre" with it's complex time signatures, brass samples, and stuttering production, "Trophy Daughter" is all flowing melodies and sighing vocals. Sans has drawn comparisons to her musical idol St. Vincent on pretty much all of her output thus far and it's not hard to see why with her emotive coo, deft guitar work, and art-pop polish but Sans has displayed impressive originality since her debut single and "Trophy Daughter" is no different. Where the "Jane Eyre" video presented a clear, albeit fractured narrative, Sans aims more for striking visuals in her "Trophy Daughter" video; taking a much more passive, cerebral approach than the action-packed viscera of "Jane Eyre".

Sans may have taken different approaches with "Jane Eyre" and "Trophy Daughter" but they're no devoid of similarities: namely in the form of Sans' unconventional narratives, and masterful less-is-more" style of song production/composition. Sans may stack intricately crafted layers on top of each other but never lets her song sound cluttered: they're presented with considerably clarity that highlights instead of obscures the work Sans has put into each song's creation.





Sur Back's much awaited debut EP Kitsch will be out July 1st.