3 South & Banana is the musical moniker of Berlin-based, French singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Aurélien Bernard. His new single and video 55 Million Light Years Away is out today with a sweet premiere via Everthing Is Noise! The new single 55 Million Light Years Away precedes the self titled debut album from 3 South & Banana, due out on April 10, 2020.
Everthing Is Noise notes: "The single includes lively percussion, spacey synth, a bouncy bass line, and Bernard’s vocals. Bernard creates many sounds within the song that sound like they could have been taken out of space. He adds an echo to his vocals, dream-like synth chords, and a melodic synth line that sounds supernatural."
3 South & Banana comments the new single and video: "Last year scientists aligned their telescope and took the first ever picture of a Black Hole. 55 Million Light Years away from us. This event resonated with me and I wandered about the relationship I have with it. The relationship I have with infinity. Infinity reaches beyond the mind and as a child, on a clear summer night looking up at the stars, I felt it. Being part of our reality, our cosmos of our inner self the Black Hole represents vacuity, the vertical dimension of life, where time and space end."
Listen + watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjTaVZ526SY&feature=youtu.be
3 South & Banana previously played in Vadoinmessico, the band that went on to become Cairobi. The reputation of 3 South & Banana as a live act has already started to spread, he recently supported The Comet Is Coming in Berlin. The 3 South & Banana live show is a multimedia/virtual band live performance and has a distinct nod to mavericks such as David Byrne.
Having grown a steady legion of fans for his idiosyncratic approach to song-writing and his unique stage craft, Aurélien explains that "I have a strong French accent when I speak English and the 3 South & Banana tag came from a comedy misunderstanding that turned into an in-joke between myself and my friends. I think humour is a great way to overcome self-doubt and this single, and the project more generally, in part explores this phenomenon”.
Taking inspiration from the surrealist psychedelia of musical oddballs such as Shintaro Sakamoto and Ariel Pink mixed with classic pop song-writing drawn from the likes of The Kinks and Syd Barrett 3 South and Banana will no doubt appeal to Aurélien’s ever growing legions of fans in the UK and across Europe.