Hello Satellites
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Hello Satellites

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"Soulshine Review - 4.5/5"

Melbourne indie label Two Bright Lakes have brought out some of the best local releases of 2010. Following on from great albums by Otouto and Seagull, Hello Satellites is no exception and brings a great offering of well-crafted folk songs to the table.

Eva Popov’s second album, and first under new moniker Hello Satellites is everything a sophomore release should be. More layered, upbeat and assured than her debut, Hello Satellites is the natural progression of Popov’s earthy sound. Her sweet vocals draw the listener in, wistful on ballads If I Had a Kite and Pelican, chirpy on Building a Wall and downright whimsical on the childlike singsong Heartbeat Fast as a Rabbit.

Popov credits production whiz Nick Huggins as the album’s ‘Director’ and his fingerprints are all over this release. As with the recent releases of label mates Otouto and Seagull, Huggins has created an enormous space for the Hello Satellites soundscape, a vast gallery in which to hang their arrangements. It’s an effective technique for such well-crafted songs and it brings Popov’s strengths to the fore.

First single, Building A Wall is a prime example. Building from handclaps and synthy jangles to a crescendo of strings and vocals, it’s one of the catchiest local releases of the year (and is accompanied by an equally fun video clip)

Elsewhere How to Break Gravity takes the sparseness to a whole new level, the ghostly track sounding like it was recorded in an abandoned church in the middle of a forest. Yet Popov’s vocals bring warmness to this and every other track on the album, inviting the listener in out of the cold. Anyone looking to escape the sappy overproduced pop flooding the airwaves at the moment need look no further than this album, it's the perfect antitode. - Soulshine


"Mess and Noise Review"

A number of recent Two Bright Lakes releases have honed the art of craftwork pop; songs pasted together from oddities and off-cuts, all the while marked by an irrefutable whimsy and beauty. Hello Satellites’ self-titled debut smoothes over the otherwise happily visible seams of this approach with distinctly pretty melodies and vocals. A collaboration between songwriter Eva Popov and producer Nick Huggins, these songs are marked by the different contributions from each – simple, unaffected song lines from Popov, and all manner of layers and accoutrements from Huggins. It’s a dichotomy that’s quickly apparent, but the delicate, poised way the songs work together lifts them into things of quiet beauty.
Each song sits like a small, exquisite ornament on an infant’s mobile; carefully constructed and seemingly propelled by something as light as the breeze. What’s always striking about Huggins’ production is how crisp and spare he can make a song sound. It’s an effect that’s sometimes chilling, but also creates a space for all the song’s elements to come into sharp relief.
These songs are airy, and often chilly, and the sparseness is surprising given the number of instruments featured here. But Popov and Huggins recognise that some things have to be pared back before you can see their purpose, and as a result, they achieve a perfect, haunting balance.
by Lawson Fletcher - Mess and Noise


"The Weekly Review"

TOP PICK
MUSIC
Hello Satellites, Hello Satellites (Two Bright Lakes)
The latest project from Melbourne singer-songwriter Eva Popov has a delicate, slight beauty easy to miss on first pass. Fragile melodies float above intricately assembled instrumentation as pianos circle hypnotically and glockenspiels chime. First single Building a Wall is a pop gem, while Stars Are You Sirens builds and throbs with a distressing urgency, but it’s often the quietest moments here that are the most affecting. Popov’s porcelain vocals have a knack for making the heart shatter, haunting the bare but beautiful bones of tracks such as If I Had a Kite and closer Pelican. At a glance, the record has a stark quality, its songs so simply constructed and so gentle in their approach that their very human warmth sometimes remains politely out of sight. Still, even if Hello Satellites does go over your head, chances are it’ll be circling back around in no time at all.
Myke Bartlett
- The Weekly


"Time Out Review ****"

As demented, rolling piano and a pulsing bass kick suddenly interrupt the initial harmonised vocals and twist the direction of opening track ‘Out There’ on Hello Satellites’ eponymous debut, jaded expectations and grievances over another Christ-forsaken sweet-voiced female-fronted indie act can be well and truly discarded for the shallow display of elitism that they are. The latest project of Melbourne-based songstress Eva Popov, Hello Satellites have, with their debut, crammed one more proverbial treat into Australia’s already bloated indie pop snack-hole, but what they’ve come up with is so good you won’t care if it gives you goddamn diabetes. It has to be said: Popov’s voice is sublime. She slips between delicacy and raw power so naturally it’s practically unconsciously embedded in her delivery, giving her words an air of honesty that would be hard to simply emulate in deliberate and constructed dynamic changes. Aside from the typical rock set-up, horns, strings, double bass, glockenspiel, banjo, keys, signal chains, accordion, and something called a thongaphone are all featured, but most of the album’s instrumentation is fairly minimal, giving the whole thing a feeling of elegant sparsity. The album features intricate percussive work as well, providing an added dimension for those who appreciate a little bit of playfulness in their rhythms. The paced brush and rim-work throughout the laced reverb and slightly wavering harmonies of ‘Million Motors’ are a nice juxtaposition, giving the half-time melodic instrumentation an underlying sense of urgency as Popov deftly weaves her magic across it all. Speaking of harmonies, Hello Satellites uses them all over, but never to the point of excess. From the groundwork a cappella of ‘The Tree’ to the backing oohs and choral build-up of ‘Heartbeat Fast As A Rabbit’, the album is a love-letter to dulcet vocal work, and you can consider yourselves the gleeful recipients, you lucky devils. HHHH Mitch Knox - Time Out


"Brag Indie Album of The Week"

Indie Album Of The Week: Hello Satellites
Hello Satellites
Two Bright Lakes
****
The debut from Hello Satellites has a bright, clean feel to it – which comes as no surprise considering the roster of the Melbourne-based indie label (Otouto, Kid Sam, Seagull et al). Everything you hear here is carefully placed and spaced.

First single ‘Building A Wall’ begins with a snare and handclap shuffle, coupled with chiming keyboard and ethereal omnichord. A muted disco bass riff underlies each verse, a trampoline for Eva Popov’s deceptively vertiginous vocal melodies. ‘Million Motors’ scuttles you into a warren with its persistent percussion, where Popov confronts you with a resigned evocation of a relationship, as it disintegrates within a claustrophobic corral…

But it’s not all exquisite melancholy. On ‘Heartbeat Fast As A Rabbit’, Popov intones with gleeful relief: “Who cares what’s outside the door/I’ve found what living is for”, transposing the homemade bombs of earlier verses into a dizzying love song. On ‘Stars Are Like Sirens’, the clipped percussion lends an air of urgency to the first months of a fractious romance. The instrumentation is utterly bewitching. Familiar instruments are nudged out of most of the tracks in favour of deceptively peculiar timbres. Minimal vocal ensembles blur gradually into a sublime melodic rhythm, like your footsteps in the dark.

The hospital corners of the record barely contain its honest, measured lyrics. This is music that piques your curiosity upon first listen, and courts you gently until you eventually concede defeat, wallowing in its mournful loveliness.

Hello Satellites is a delicate and consummate debut, brimming with hopeful window-taps and barren evening lamp-light. Wow. It’s really beautiful out here.

Luke Telford - The Brag, Sydney


Discography


Albums:

Hello Satellites Self-Titled 2010

Singles:

Out There

Building A Wall

Heartbeat Fast as a Rabbit

Photos

Bio

Hello Satellites is the new project from Melbourne songwriter Eva Popov. Beginning as a solo project in her suburban shed before taking form as studio collaboration with producer Nick Huggins, Hello Satellites create both subtle and exciting music. Lyrically there are strong themes based around Eva's experience of motherhood, suburban alienation, urban growth and their inevitable effects both psychological and environmental.

The debut album is made up of ecstatic flashes of pop reverie amongst stunning quiet, more introspective moments. It includes the musicianship of Cathryn Kohn, Melisa Collins, Peter Emptage and Mark Gretton (Touch Typist).