Many of the tracks on Spinning Coin’s 2017 debut Permo sound so clearly descendent of Glasgow jangle rockers The Pastels that it would come as more of a shock to learn that the record wasn’t put out by Geographic Music, the Domino Records imprint run by The Pastels’ Stephen McRobbie. Despite the proto-punk edge of cuts like “Tin” and “Sides,” Permo carries on the penchant for weightless jangle pop pioneered a quarter of a decade ago by their fellow countrymen who, yes, ushered the record into existence.
Nearly two years later, we’re getting the first new music from the fourpiece in the form of a pair of singles, the first of which the band is sharing today with a lo-fi video. “”Visions at the Stars” lands on the not-proto-punk end of their carefully curated spectrum, a playful number alternating between curiously un-Scottish Elliott Smith–like vocals and a chorus of inharmonious utterances.
“I wanted it to sound a bit like a T-Rex song, I don’t think it does though,” admits songwriter Sean Armstrong. “It’s about being on a tour, and finding a different perspective from being on the move, and not wanting to go home. It’s a celebration of the cosmos, and its infinite, ever-changing nature. It’s about how music came into my life like a wind blowing me around, and helped me to travel, and see things that inspired me to change the way I live.”
Visions at the Stars / Not a Dream is available August 30 on Geographic Music. You can pre-order it here.