THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The third album from Pale Blue Eyes is fittingly called New Place. The album arrives on the back of extensive and emotional transit. For PBE, 2024 started with a wonderful tour of 12 European countries. The year’s end brought more movement for the married couple at the core of the band: Singer and guitarist Matt Board and drummer and synth queen Lucy Board. Sadly, it was family tragedy that catalysed their move from South Devon to South Yorkshire.
Lucy and Matt had been living with Matt’s mother amid quiet Devon verdancy, between Dartmoor and the coast. Matt’s mum had been suffering from a long-term degenerative illness and Lucy and Matt had moved into the rural family home to be with her. There was also room to build an impressive recording studio. Lucy and Matt did a fair bit of the heavy lifting themselves, installing the big 36-channel console and fitting out the recording space. The original touring and recording trio had been completed by bassist Aubrey Simpson, who was living nearby, in the Devon town of Totnes where he’d grown up. Pale Blue Eyes’ first two albums, Souvenirs (2022) and This House (2023) were recorded at the home studio. But when Matt’s mum died the family home had to be sold. The band’s studio had to be relocated.
“Change is a theme throughout the new album, ” says Lucy. “It’s about being in a new place, starting again but reflecting on the journey and what and who got us to this place. It’s a celebration of making it to this point and starting again.” This change has taken Matt from familiar terrain — and taken Lucy back to a place she knows very well. Lucy grew up in Sheffield and played in several teenage bands there. A little later her college dissertation was titled An Investigation Into Sheffield’s Alternative Music Scene Between 1973 And 1978, With Particular Reference To Cabaret Voltaire. (After the release of PBE’s first album, the dissertation found a nice echo when Lucy joined The Cabs’ Stephen Mallinder for an online conversation). Since arriving in Sheffield, Matt and Lucy have immersed themselves in the area, enjoying the panoramic views from Meersbrook Park. Curries and pubs have been sought out, along with watching Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.
PBE’s move to South Yorkshire also put the band in close proximity to a key ally. Some of Lucy’s formative musical experiences involved playing with Dean Honer and friends in Sheffield. Dean is renowned for his free-ranging musical output, including Moonlandingz, I Monster and The Eccentronic Research Council. He’s also sought after for his production and mixing talents, which have been applied to artists including Róisín Murphy, The Human League and Add N To (X). Dean mixed and mastered Pale Blue Eyes’ first two album — and now does the same with the new album, as well as adding some synth parts. The difference this time is that Dean now lives just around the corner, allowing him to pop round to lend just the right mic, or make available his Orban Dual Spring Reverb unit.
Pale Blue Eyes’ debut album was preceded by youthful ambition and adventure. Matt’s love of Sigur Rós inspired him to make a speculative journey to Iceland. His charm and talent got him inside Sigur Rós’s Sundlaugin studio, where he made some formative recordings with engineer Birgir Jón Birgisson. Matt and Lucy first met bassist Aubrey at Totnes’s Sea Change festival. Aubrey is huge devotee of funk and Motown, a big fan of that label’s in-house bassist, James Jamerson. By the time Pale Blue Eyes released their debut single in 2021, Aubrey’s groove had become a key part of things. Aubrey’s low-frequency locomotion added to the other sounds people detected in the young band: The Cure. Cocteau Twins. Echo And The Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant at his most raga-expansive. The single had some novel funding — from forward-thinking Devon mushroom growers and a firm of Devon undertakers who also happened to be involved with an artistic afterlife project with The KLF’s Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond.
The band’s subsequent singles regularly occupied radio playlists. Their debut album Souvenirs was widely praised. The album was often joyous but also encompassed deep sadness. As the band had worked toward the LP , Matt’s father had died. Matt was just in his 20s at the time. As with Matt’s mum, his dad was a teacher — and a big music fan. Matt would sometimes wake to the sound of his father blasting Cocteau Twins out on the household stereo.
The second PBE album, This House, was released in 2023 and again was greeted by sustained praise. More solemnly, Matt’s mum died while the album was being made. But the recording schedule helped Matt and Lucy process this great loss, events filtering into some poignant music. A touching photo of Matt’s parents became the image on the front cover. “Time stopped, ” Matt said at the time. “I’d see my family in every corner of the house — all the reminders, ghosts and memories. Then, gradually, it felt like time for a new start, moving on from the house and my amazing parents.”
That new start is fully manifested on Pale Blue Eyes’ new album. Return single How Long Is Now brought uplifting synth carousels and was titled after a Berlin mural and art installation. On Pieces Of You, gorgeously deliquescent guitar ripples out over Matt’s distinctive tenor voice. Be There is meditative, delicate, with guest vocals from Rachael Swinton of Glasgow electronic-rock duo Cloth. Aubrey made his own fretless bass. It features on the track Seven Years. Several tracks have input from two musicians who have featured in the live lineup — Tom Sharkett, music producer and guitarist with W.H. Lung, and music producer and musician Lewis Johnson-Kellett.
“The new album comes with a new landscape,” says Matt, summing up. “We were in new surroundings with new city sounds — a bit overwhelming for me, but also exciting. I hope the result is uplifting, driving, a perpetual forward motion. There are new sounds but also a steadfast Krautrock influence, alongside some of the band’s other favourite moods and flavours. The album reflects the end of an era and embracing new beginnings in a new place. But when we were unpacking in our new house in Sheffield we found an old slide projector that had belonged to my parents. We spent hours looking through their old 35mm slides and we decided to use one for the album cover — a blurry shot out of a window at dusk or dawn with amazing blue light. We also found a recording of my granddad doing a speech at a family wedding and worked that into the track Our Lost Words. It feels like a lifetime of memories — but now beside a world of new beginnings.”
