New Audio: Atlanta’s Silk Daisys Shares Swooning, Halloween-Themed “Haunted House”

Atlanta-based dream pop/post-punk duo Silk Daisys — James Abercrombie and romantic partner Karla Jean Davis — have been making music together for some time, but their forthcoming Silk Daisys and Damon Moon co-produced debut will be their first, official release. Interestingly, the Silk Daisys name has been around even further, with Abercrombie using the name on Soundcloud for about a decade to upload random covers and the occasional original song.

“We recorded our album over two weeks with Damon Moon (Bathe Alone, Sleepers Club) at this studio Standard Electric Recorders in Atlanta. Damon was awesome to work with,” the duo says. “We spent a ton of time just talking about music the three of us love and sharing songs back and forth. We’d name some obscure part of a song as a reference and he’d get it immediately, and dial in the tones perfectly. Damon also played drums and percussion on the album. The three of us produced it together, and it was all really collaborative and fun.”`

But in the meantime, the Atlanta-based duo’s latest single, the Halloween-themed “Haunted House,” channels Pygmalion and Souvlaki-era Slowdive with the song featuring fuzzy and swirling guitar textures, glistening synth bursts, thunderous drumming, boy-girl harmonies and enormous hooks and choruses. And at its core, the song sees the duo pairing goth and Romantic themes, evoking the bitter longing for a loved one you can never get back.

“Haunted House” is what I’d consider our only true shoegaze song, though shoegaze elements find their way into our songs just because we’re such huge fans of the genre. When I wrote it, I was thinking about this great Lee Hazlewood song, ‘Won’t You Tell Your Dreams,'” says Silk Daisys’ James Abercrombie. “It’s about how he can’t stop dreaming of an old love. It has this really haunting vibe to it. We’re also really into haunted houses and carnival dark rides and anything in that realm… Karla listens to a lot of ghost story podcasts. Our daughter has ghost hunting equipment and takes it with her to old places. I tend to be a little on the skeptical side, but I am coming around. I really love ghost stories where spirits are doing something routine, like getting their morning coffee. There’s something really interesting to me about the memory of someone being so strong that it feels palpable, like it’s inhabiting your space and haunting you. Karla had the idea to make the vocals at the end sound super ghostly, which I think really adds to the spookiness of the track.”