Bastian's Happy Flight
Perth, Western Australia, Australia | SELF
Music
Press
Western Australia is a long way away from my home, Sydney – some 4,000km (2,500 miles). Given the distance, a lot of their up-and-coming acts are overlooked on the East Coast. The best can’t be ignored for long though, with the likes of San Cisco and Tim and Jean drawing more attention to the West Coast in recent times. Bastian’s Happy Flight are the next.
The funk-friendly five-piece have been steaming up the dance floor for awhile now, releasing their debut EP EP01 last year. This saw them signed to UK label Mullet Records, which gave their music an introduction to an international audience.
Their music is impossibly fun, and their clear 80s influence and overall exuberance is infectious. “RELATIONSHIPDENIAL” is their latest single, and will appear on their sophmore EP due out later this year. Synth and funk heavy, it’s been described by chief songwriter Will Slade as “a bromance track, essentially melodramatic pop.” Sounds simple? The track contains over 50 channels of instrumentation, from guitars and synth to falsetto choirs and a ridiculously smooth sax-solo.
With the band up for a number of Western Australia music prizes, surely it won’t be too long till they’re getting the respect they deserve outside of their home state. Enjoy. I did.
- Indie Shuffle
Western Australia is a long way away from my home, Sydney – some 4,000km (2,500 miles). Given the distance, a lot of their up-and-coming acts are overlooked on the East Coast. The best can’t be ignored for long though, with the likes of San Cisco and Tim and Jean drawing more attention to the West Coast in recent times. Bastian’s Happy Flight are the next.
The funk-friendly five-piece have been steaming up the dance floor for awhile now, releasing their debut EP EP01 last year. This saw them signed to UK label Mullet Records, which gave their music an introduction to an international audience.
Their music is impossibly fun, and their clear 80s influence and overall exuberance is infectious. “RELATIONSHIPDENIAL” is their latest single, and will appear on their sophmore EP due out later this year. Synth and funk heavy, it’s been described by chief songwriter Will Slade as “a bromance track, essentially melodramatic pop.” Sounds simple? The track contains over 50 channels of instrumentation, from guitars and synth to falsetto choirs and a ridiculously smooth sax-solo.
With the band up for a number of Western Australia music prizes, surely it won’t be too long till they’re getting the respect they deserve outside of their home state. Enjoy. I did.
- Indie Shuffle
First support of the night was Perth’s dance pop junkies Bastian’s Happy Flight. Only an armful of people were lucky enough to fully experience the brilliance of cheesy lyrics and synthesizers reminiscent of 70’s disco, but that didn’t stop the band from having a good time. Songs about love and not being able to get a drink at the bar make Bastian’s Happy Flight so darling and relatable. A couple of punters really got into their music and strutted their stuff in the empty mosh space but it was disappointing to see such a small turn out in the beginning of the evening. - Faster Louder
First support of the night was Perth’s dance pop junkies Bastian’s Happy Flight. Only an armful of people were lucky enough to fully experience the brilliance of cheesy lyrics and synthesizers reminiscent of 70’s disco, but that didn’t stop the band from having a good time. Songs about love and not being able to get a drink at the bar make Bastian’s Happy Flight so darling and relatable. A couple of punters really got into their music and strutted their stuff in the empty mosh space but it was disappointing to see such a small turn out in the beginning of the evening. - Faster Louder
First support of the night was Perth’s dance pop junkies Bastian’s Happy Flight. Only an armful of people were lucky enough to fully experience the brilliance of cheesy lyrics and synthesizers reminiscent of 70’s disco, but that didn’t stop the band from having a good time. Songs about love and not being able to get a drink at the bar make Bastian’s Happy Flight so darling and relatable. A couple of punters really got into their music and strutted their stuff in the empty mosh space but it was disappointing to see such a small turn out in the beginning of the evening. - Faster Louder
First support of the night was Perth’s dance pop junkies Bastian’s Happy Flight. Only an armful of people were lucky enough to fully experience the brilliance of cheesy lyrics and synthesizers reminiscent of 70’s disco, but that didn’t stop the band from having a good time. Songs about love and not being able to get a drink at the bar make Bastian’s Happy Flight so darling and relatable. A couple of punters really got into their music and strutted their stuff in the empty mosh space but it was disappointing to see such a small turn out in the beginning of the evening. - Faster Louder
Up next in the main room was electro pop peddlers Bastian’s Happy Flight who played a great upbeat and energising set. The band seemed confident on stage launching straight into their set, which was brimming to the top with mesmerising synths and great vocals. Their tracks have a great sing-along quality to them and are incredibly catchy and are sure to get you moving. You Keep Dancing was probably my favourite of the set, but that was a hard choice to make. - The AU Review
Up next in the main room was electro pop peddlers Bastian’s Happy Flight who played a great upbeat and energising set. The band seemed confident on stage launching straight into their set, which was brimming to the top with mesmerising synths and great vocals. Their tracks have a great sing-along quality to them and are incredibly catchy and are sure to get you moving. You Keep Dancing was probably my favourite of the set, but that was a hard choice to make. - The AU Review
Up next in the main room was electro pop peddlers Bastian’s Happy Flight who played a great upbeat and energising set. The band seemed confident on stage launching straight into their set, which was brimming to the top with mesmerising synths and great vocals. Their tracks have a great sing-along quality to them and are incredibly catchy and are sure to get you moving. You Keep Dancing was probably my favourite of the set, but that was a hard choice to make. - The AU Review
Up next in the main room was electro pop peddlers Bastian’s Happy Flight who played a great upbeat and energising set. The band seemed confident on stage launching straight into their set, which was brimming to the top with mesmerising synths and great vocals. Their tracks have a great sing-along quality to them and are incredibly catchy and are sure to get you moving. You Keep Dancing was probably my favourite of the set, but that was a hard choice to make. - The AU Review
Discography
EP01 - 2011
Photos
Bio
Bastian’s Happy Flight are a band of electronic musicians/visionists taking a genuine adoration of the hitherto pinnacle of pop and injecting it back into itself.
Despite the name, there is no sly wink here nor is it an 80s pastiche going after the nostalgia dollar, it’s a raw testament to the communication of mood and humanity through machines.
With Australia 88 vocals atop Euro 82 production, the resultant palette is a socio-circumnavigational trip into the accomplishment of what pop should be: breezy and carefree topnotes, mids split 50/50 between ravenous passion and midnight melancholy with a flagrant urge to dance punctuating the drydown. Lavish and direct, it’s what you make of it but what you make if it is inevitably likely to be along the lines of lazer-soul, boogie and pre-house with inflections of Learjet interiors and Minneapolis from when you would have wanted to be there.
The best part of all of the above is that it’s all done live on the spot by actual bandmembers fuelled by an impulse to rule. There are no laptops, iPod jack-ins or even admittedly pretty good MPCs in effect, just five guys getting stuck in.
So far the band have lent their undeniable brand of stage magic to acts such as Does It Offend You, Yeah? (UK), Canyons (Modular), GLOVES (Bang Gang 12 Inches) and Scenic (Future Classic) but there is heaps more mad gear on the horizon. This month sees the band doing shows with Jonathan Boulet followed by Goldfields and fellow live disco luminaries The Swiss later in the year.
With three tracks currently scaling the Triple J Unearthed Dance Charts and the following suite, your outlets to hear the band beyond their live context are many and varied. ie their stunner debut EP EP01.
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