Music
Press
The Sydney fivepiece come on like a more melodic Tame Impala, and when they really get going they've got mighty fine chops live too - the end of their set at Digital at this year's Great Escape was probably the loudest gig I've seen there since The Big Pink practically blew it up a couple years back (and all the better for it). Now, they're making a few more inroads in the UK with new single 'Girls': - NME
he Deep Sea Arcade set was nothing short of enjoyable and brilliant, and one can only hope for Canberra music lovers that they grace us with their talent again. - Fasterlouder.com
Amid the band’s ever-shuffling reference points, maybe we can chalk up the consistency here to co-writers, singer Nic Mckenzie and bassist Nick Weaver, who’ve been collaborating since they were teens. No matter what the inspirations – whether Portishead, DJ Shadow and French New Wave sci-fi gems Alphaville and Fahrenheit 451 on the Air-esque title track, or the bygone Manchester scene and The Smiths elsewhere – it always ends up sounding like the same band. - messandnoise.com
e Deep Sea Arcade sound is immediately inviting: wet, jangling guitars and dreamy organs drenched in a fine haze of reverb. Very retro. Very slick. It’s the sturdiness of Nic McKenzie and Nick Weaver’s songwriting that has lasting appeal, however; the pair bring a sense of craft to the music here, combining instantly appealing hooks with an ability to cram as much into a three-minute pop song as possible, without overloading it. It’s well-trodden territory – by The Beatles, The Kinks and The Smiths, amongst goodness knows how many others – but DSA have somehow managed to carve out a space of their own. - The Brag magazine - Sydney
fter a hectic as two thousand and eleven and an even more full on twenty twelve thus far, Deep Sea Arcade are kicking massive goals in just about every aspect of their fledgling career right now.
Their debut album Outlands is an intricate balance between pop song writing and inventive arrangements, forming a solid variety of tracks to keep you interested all the way through to the end. After last year’s successful EP as well as a couple of singles, Outlands was triple j’s feature album a couple of weeks back. Add in that they’re currently on tour with Children Collide, scored the Kaiser Chiefs support and are also headling their own national tour in June and you have one busy band. - All I Do Is Listen
It would be foolish to compare them to Lennon-McCartney at this stage, but there’s a synergy and focus in their channelling of beat pop and kaleidoscopic rock, and Outlands’ forty minutes is positively dripping with retro panache. - Beat Magazine Melbourne
once again context is not an applicable concept to assess it by. It calls to mind other self-sufficient and sustaining albums such as The Stone Roses’ self-titled debut, The Stokes’ Is This It, and Television’s Marquee Moon. These are albums that don’t falter as time ticks over or indeed pay any attention to the workings of time. Something it also shares with these albums is that every song on it could warrant inclusion on a greatest hits collection, without having an obvious ‘hit’. The danger implicit in this appraisal is that it will be very difficult to top. However, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is atemporal; it resounds with allure and a sense of importance right now, and indeed that is all that should ever matter. - http://augustuswelby.tumblr.com
For long-time followers, Outlands is both everything you could want from a Deep Sea Arcade album plus much more than you’d expect. It’s a dark, cinematic venture that culminates all the band’s influences into one neat package and spits them out into something that swaggers like the Stones, possesses balls the size of Jim Morrison’s while simultaneously sparkling with first rate musicianship, top-shelf songwriting and a cannon of ideas bursting at the seams. - Themusic.com.au
Deep Sea Arcade have proven once and for all that they can produce amazing music and create something that is truly an entity unto itself. This was well worth the wait. 8.4/10 - The AU review
Outlands is the culmination of their musical education – a dark, absorbing and adventurous album which spans various musical influences. This album honors the experimental and dystopian sci-fi films of the 60s, and like any good movie this album takes the listener on a (12-track) journey. This works, because the album has no holes, it flows effortlessly.
First single “Girls,” released late last year, has already received significant airplay on BBC1, and rightly so, with a terrific riff completing a classic indie-pop track. The recently released “Steam” – one of the lighter songs on the album – has a definite retro feel, from the repeating loop to the catchy pop-melodies. “Together” has strong similarities to Tame Impala’s music, or even some of the Beatles’ later kaleidoscopic works (circa Magical Mystery Tour). Mckenzie’s drifty vocals are a highlight, especially on “Lonely in Your Arms” which is perhaps the standout. This track is fantastically produced surf-pop topped-off with regimented percussion and deep bass embraces.
Outlands is fantastic, and the release will no doubt thrust Deep Sea Arcade further into the spotlight, and not just in Australia. If only there was more music of this quality. - Indie Shuffle
"Every one of the 12 tracks here has something to love about it" - The Australian Newspaper
Discography
2012 - Outlands LP
Photos
Bio
Led by vocalist Nic McKenzie and bassist Nick Weaver,Deep Sea Arcade combine their love of 60’s beat, surf and psychedelic rock with 80’s new wave, ‘Madchester’ and trip hop. Regardless of the era, it’s the common devotion to the ‘beat’ underlying all their influences that defines their sound. The pair, friends since meeting at high school in Sydney, penned dozens of songs and experimented with every sort of sound in their bedroom before finding their perfect counterparts in drummer Carlos Adura and guitarists Simon Relf and Tim Chamberlain.
Debut album OUTLANDS was released in Australia in March 2012 to wide critical acclaim.
Some years in the making, OUTLANDS is the culmination of a long friendship between songwriters Nic Mckenzie and Nick Weaver. Frontman Mckenzie and bassist Weaver have been playing music together since their mid-teens, and the pair recruited drummer Carlos Adura and guitarists Simon Relf and Tim Chamberlain to round out the band a few years back.
“Carlos is a long-time friend and was an obvious choice of drummer and mascot,” explains Mckenzie. “If we were the Ninja Turtles he would be Splinter. Simon Relf and Nick Weaver met when they were hired as members of a one-time house band for a party in a Country Women’s Association Hall on the New South Wales south coast. Tim was spotted playing creepy reverb guitars in another band and was promptly stolen.”
Initially using four-track tape recorders, broadcast microphones and unconventional computer programs to create songs in their bedrooms, Mckenzie and Weaver were able to see their music fully realised with the additional band members giving the songs the depth and energy they deserved. Since then, DEEP SEA ARCADE have toured with the likes of Noel Gallagher, Modest Mouse and Washington, played the Primavera Festival in Spain, The Great Escape in Brighton UK and had tracks receive high rotation airplay both in Australia and abroad by stations including BBC Radio 1 and triple j. The first single from OUTLANDS, the deliciously upbeat GIRLS has already proved a firm favourite on-air and live.
“This is SICK!” – Zane Lowe, BBC Radio 1
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