Premiere: Ninetails - 'Quiet Confidence' [EP stream]

Liverpool band dip into more experimental waters on their first release in two years.

Two years have passed since Ninetails' last release. Since then, they've ditched their more conventionally indie sound and picked up a penchant for the experimental. Written solely by singer and guitarist Jordan Balaber, the seven songs on their new 'Quiet Confidence' EP ring with a forward-thinking, almost metaphysical approach to music; throughout, certain grooves gleam recognisable – like the exploded R&B jams in O For Two, or the sunny pop in opener Radiant Hex – seeming at times a microscopic study of sound, each song fragmented, observed in super-slow motion.

But in its execution, it's not at all scientific. 'Quiet Confidence' documents instead the feeling and passion within the atoms of sound that are on display. The free-flowing alien vocals of Hopelessly Devoted, with its romantic piano chords and snippets of sped up classical guitar, and the huge columns of reverse noise and throttling bass in closer Sinn Djinn, show this genreless, pure love of sound. Even the spaces in-between are treated with the same respect as their opposites, fade-outs into the void feeling heavy and poignant mid-O For Two – delicately bridging the collage of sounds set to a snapping beat in Quiet Confidence and Pure Utopian Moment, a wordless crescendo of strings, sombre brass, and washes of hiss.