#chasing shade

New Portals - Chasing Shade

New Portals are an Indie pop / electronica duo made up of married couple Ruth Aicken (vocals, percussion) and Mike Aicken (vocals, synth, keyboards). from the UK.

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New Portals - Chasing Shade

Follow New Portals as we tour their hometown of Belfast in their new video for ‘Chasing Shade,’ watching as the duo work in their practice space, wander open fields and empty side streets, and even explore some of the locations featured in Game of Thrones during a rain-soaked Northern Irish summer, backed by a wondrous, soothing blend of moody atmospherics, fluttering piano and sombre drum rolls.

Mike Aicken says about the video via press release

‘We shot the music video for ‘Chasing Shade’ opportunistically over the summer, in our practice space, the side streets surrounding our house in east Belfast and in some of the Game of Thrones backdrops in the “leadmines” of Newtownards. It features a burnt-out car, something that was a familiar sight from my childhood. The video also features our daughter, Freiah-Beth, dancing in the rain and under broken gutters on a typical Northern-Irish filming day. We actually decided to film ourselves whilst we were filming it, then ended up preferring the ‘B-roll’!’

‘Chasing Shade’ is from New Portals latest EP Golden Hour, out now. Read the review for their previous EP Stereo here. You can also read my interview with New Portals here.

Last night was amazing! After getting some rest from the late night/early morning drive back from Kansas City, we got together at Trevor’s new place around 3:00 and spent the rest of the afternoon working on some older songs and a couple covers for last night, (“Breakneck Speed” by Tokyo Police Club and “Scar Tissue” by Red Hot Chili Peppers).

Speaking of Chasing Shade, they were fantastic! One of the most talented groups in Iowa and on top of that, very nice dudes as well. Really wish we would have connected with them a year or two ago but better late than never. With the addition ace bassist Blake Shaw and of a couple brass boys throwing in excellent harmonies and accents to the already crisp croons of the core duo of Griffin and Elliot, the five piece cranked out top notch tunes that set the perfect mood for the evening.

The end of their set could very well have been the highlight of the night when we joined them for a nearly improvised rendition of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac which we had gone over once or twice together before heading over to Blue Moose. From a musician’s standpoint, it was very rewarding to see a last minute collaboration come together so well and to be able to play off each other during an extended jam with everyone on stage together. Very cool bro-bonding, (plus the dads in the crowd were way pumped on the retro groove!) Collabs rule. Dads rule.

Although Lucas’ pedalboard crapped out directly before our set, he was a total champ and sounded as good as ever. We had a blast with the covers, old jams and a couple new ones that we’ve written post “Barefoot Blondes.” We cranked out a 17 song setlist which was probably the most songs we’ve done before which left us in the sweaty embraces of the many friends and family who came out for the night.

The night wasn’t over until we finally loaded up the trailer one last time and started up the van. Sadly, the van didn’t start up. We tried jumping it with Noel’s car. Nope. We tried waiting and jumping it again. Nada. We had made it all over the Midwest the past nine days and it seemed that the old van had finally sensed it was back home and clocked out a little too early. I bid my farewells with Chasing Shade and our friends in the Locavaux Project who had made it to the show on their last night of a summer-long tour of the entire country. If you aren’t familiar with their project, you should look them up and keep your eyes out for their documentary which will be coming out this December! Meanwhile, Trevor called AAA and we waited till they came to save us around 3:30. We unloaded our gear at Trevor’s place and all headed back home.

That’s basically it. Tour summer 2013 was a blast and I couldn’t be happier with how everything came together. I could go on forever about how blessed and excited we feel at the friends we got to see and reconnect with, new friends, the people who housed and fed us, the people who came out to the shows and supported us, and all of you on the interwebs who could be streaming Workaholics or sharing Buzzfeed articles with each other but instead chose to read about what our band did for nine days. YOU GUYS ALL RULE AND WE LOVE YOU.

Keep in touch and be on the lookout for our new music video for “Mind” which will be coming out later this month and a fall show schedule which will be posted soon as well. 

We thought about posting a cool group photo of all of us hugging or something as the last note of this daily tour blog but instead, here’s a picture of Lucas talking to a small, terrified black boy who was warning us about the dangers of sea creatures and water a couple days ago in Des Moines.

Also, remember to wear underwear. That is key.

Peace out guys,

-Jeff

Chasing Shade | Nothing More | Afterhours Session #7

We weren't sure if it was the smell of food or the bustling crowd that brought Chasing Shade to the Farmer's Market to play their track "Nothing More", but the bewildering stares and awkward claps made it all worth while.