- 2022-10-25
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MUSIC
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Young Gun Silver Fox Releases New Album “Ticket To Shangri-La”: Streaming
London-based alt-pop duo Young Gun Silver Fox, consisting of Andy Platts and Shawn Lee, released their fourth studio album “Ticket To Shangri-La” on October 21, 2022.
The album comprises 10-track, written and produced by Andy Platts and Shawn Lee.
The album is influenced by the late 1970s and the early 1980s pop sound of west coast, likes of Pages, Bobby Caldwell, Mr. Mister and more.
The duo showcases fine-tuning their potent brew of sun-kissed pop-soul, west coast AOR and natural groove with a skill for composition and production that sees them forging ahead down a musical highway blessed with blue skies and positive vibrations.
Andy Platts explained, “I always come back to Young Gun Silver Fox like taking a drive to the coast and I just smell the ocean and the air and it's like 'wicked I'm back here again' and I can just kick back and enjoy it.”
Key for Shawn Lee when it came to starting the creative process for the new record was taking their already skilled approach to writing and recording and adding something new to the mix.
Shawn Lee said, “We have a sound and a language that we've cultivated that sounds like Young Gun Silver Fox, and these things are great but they can be a double-edged sword because you think 'well nobody wants to make the same thing over and over', so you need to find ways to move forward and do something you haven't done before. I was thinking we have a lot of mid-tempo stuff, so I started thinking if we had some bangers and some more up-tempo stuff that would be great and would add to the canon, and so I concentrated on delivering a few things like that.”- Young Gun Silver Fox explained of some tracks for the album.
“West Side Jet”
Shawn Lee: “When Andy sent me the vocals I was honestly like 'this is the first single!' We hadn't even finished the album yet but it was instant.”
Andy Platts: “Lyrically I knew I didn't want to do anything romantic. It can't be about the dancefloor it can't be 'I love you, break my heart' etc. it needed to be something different. The only musical I really like is West Side Story and I'd watched the original again recently so it'd come back into my consciousness just how brilliant the music and writing was, so it was just a bit of a nod to my fondness of that as a piece of culture.”
“Tip Of The Flame”
Shawn Lee: “That track was just winning. It just had a groove so I knew that was gonna be great when Andy got on it. The vocals are so good on it, he's just singing his ass off on a whole 'nutha level.”
“Rolling Back”
Andy Platts: “I was trying to fuse Tears For Fears or Prefab Sprout with an '80s soul thing which was an interesting experiment. I wrote and tracked it from the ground up and then Shawn replaced the drums on it as he's a master drummer. Shawn embellishes and adds his sugar which always elevates it to another level and that's where Shawn's magic and deserved role as producer of the records we make is earned, because he really knows how to make a record.” -
“Sierra Nights”
Andy Platts: “It's one of the most favourite things I've done. Musically I was just trying to reach into that west coast acoustic sound, but one of the things that sent me there was one of my lockdown reads which was Don Quixote, and it's all there in the lyrics which are about Don Quixote and Sancho. I was just really trying to paint a picture of their friendship and their struggle set amongst this vast wilderness and each one having each other's back. I did kind of think of me and Shawn in there as well, it's just the two of us against the world really.”
Shawn Lee: “When he sent me that track I was almost dumbfounded. It was so instantly evocative and atmospheric that it pulled me into a world. It felt so different from anything we'd done before but I thought it was something really, really special.”
“Winners”
Andy Platts: “This tune is as silky as it gets. A slinky R&B groove with a super tasty harmonica solo by Pat Levitt. A real deep cut. Shawn suggested we take things in a Caldwell flavoured direction, so that's where it went. I loved laying down the bass on this! Originally we had Candy Dulfer in mind for the solo but for various reasons we couldn't bring it together. Hooray for silver linings though - Pat Levitt is one of the classiest harmonica players out there so it was amazing to have him on this cut - I couldn't imagine anything else in that solo spot now!”
Photo by Dan Massie - source : Apple Music
