UK indie duo CHAMPS have returned with “Adeleine,” their first release since their 2019 album, The Hard Interchange. A unique combination of cool minimalism and evocative Americana, it’s the first glimpse of the duo’s forthcoming yet-to-be-announced fourth studio album due out in 2023. Listen to the nostalgic track now below.
“‘Adeleine’ was written in an attempt to capture a timeless melancholy,” explains Michael Champion. “Born of a yearning for simpler times. Phone-less times. Something for the ages but something too for all the ages. More an ideal, an emotion, or a picture than a reference to anything specific. Adeleine is a fictional spirit riding across the parameters of human boundaries. Feeling dead lonesome but enjoying the reflective haze of sunshine on a reservoir. Dim reflections of a dying late-night dive bar, its flickering neon sign reflected in the puddles of a metropolitan side street. Where Adeleine may travel, and what they might find is limitless.”
Musical siblings have a magical quality – they share the same influences, paint from the same sound palette, and trade ‘goosebump’ moments back and forth with a kind of easy telepathy. Michael and David Champion have been playing together since they were kids, as you’d expect, and they’re veterans of the Isle of Wight’s exceptional music scene: Michael fronted buzzy indie band The Shutes, and he recently contributed bass to the debut smash by fellow islanders Wet Leg.
Island life, and a childhood steeped in the music of Laurel Canyon, formed a sensibility in the brothers that makes them, in sound and aesthetic, more like an American band: “We’ve never really considered ourselves a ‘British band’,” says David. “Our music has always felt transatlantic. It’s driving music, big scenery…”