Artist: Summer Camp
Album: Young, Popfrenzy Records
A couple bonds of their love of 1980s sophomoric cinema
If iconic Eighties director John Hughes were to rise from the grave and direct an indie love story set in an American high school—starring Zooey Deschanel as the popular, hair-flipping cheerleader and Jason Schwartzman as the pocket protector-toting computer geek—he would certainly ask London duo Summer Camp to provide the soundtrack.
Indie singer/songwriter Jeremy Warmsley and Platform magazine editor Elizabeth Sankey’s collaboration Young is an imitation Eighties mix tape paying homage to Eighties anti-heroines like “Veronica Sawyer” from the 1989 cult classic Heathers and the untouchable heart-throb “Jake Ryan” from 1984’s Sixteen Candles.
A few of the washy, seashore tracks like “Why Don’t You Stay” fade next to Warmsley’s Joy Division vocals and brilliantly cliché pop lyrics on the twitchy opener “Round the Moon”. Sankey’s angsty half-spoken, twee-pop vocals against Warmsley galloping guitar and pinging synths result in the best unpolished, 21st century, indie rom-com soundtrack—and perhaps the only one.
Key Tracks: “Round the Moon”, “Ghost Train”, “Jake Ryan”
