Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway play on Snowbird's first album

Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway of Radiohead play on Moon, the first album by Snowbird, a new duo of Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins and the singer-songwriter Stephanie Dosen. Eric Pulido and McKenzie Smith of Midlake, Paul Gregory of Lanterns on the Lake and Jonathan Wilson are guests too. Spin has Raymonde's announcement.

Having them add their magic to the record was a thrill, but really, I think this is very much Stephanie's record.

Simon Raymonde¹

The first song out is “Porcelain”, a piano ballad with Dosen's voice at the front, which went up on Pitchfork as Raymonde announced the band. Bella Union, the label he runs, puts the album out in January in a sleeve by Vaughan Oliver, the designer long tied to 4AD and to Cocteau Twins.

Raymonde says Dosen is the first singer since Elizabeth Fraser, his bandmate in Cocteau Twins, with whom he has felt a real musical empathy. He and Dosen had never written together at home before this record, he says, and he wrote all of its music at night, in semi-darkness. It would be a little odd if it didn't remind people of Cocteau Twins¹, he says of the sound.

Snowbird, “Porcelain”, official video, from Moon· bellaunionincwatch on youtube →