Sam Stone
Sam Stone

Sam Stone is a journalist and audio documentary maker based in South East London. Lover of sweaty gigs, Dolly Parton trivia and fancy beer.

Roscoe Roscoe share dreamy, sun-tinted new single ‘Secret Underwater Love’

‘Secret Underwater Love’, the latest track from East London based five-piece Roscoe Roscoe, is a joy. The dreamy single inspires a warm fondness for hot summer evenings long gone, remembered through rose-tinted glasses. ‘Secret Underwater Love’ feels like drinking warm cider in a closed park, making daisy chains and lazily picking at the grass while the sun sets.

Charlie Read Clarke’s soft vocals have a comforting sweetness to them. Clarke shines a light on the track’s nostalgic feel, revealing that ‘Secret Underwater Love’ is one of the band’s oldest songs. 

He explains “I wrote and recorded the first demo when I was about 15, long before I’d even met half of the band and since then I think there have been at least 3 different recorded studio versions until this one. It has a special, weird place in my heart that both floods me with equal parts nostalgia and cringe. Despite being the least mature of all our songs, it felt worth releasing after all these years, as our sound feels like it is forever changing.”

Released by the terminally cool London label Slow Dance Records in partnership with US label Missing Piece, ‘Secret Underwater Love’ follows the band’s first two singles, ‘Brain Retrieve’ and ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. ‘Secret Underwater Love’ feels softer and calmer than Roscoe Roscoe’s previous releases, while further developing their refreshing strain of contemporary psychedelia. 

Described by Radio X’s John Kennedy as ‘a British answer to Tame Impala’, Roscoe Roscoe’s sound draws influences from psychedelic rock bands Wand and Crumb as well as avant-pop groups like Stereolab and Broadcast.

After forming at The Brit School, the band have had an exciting journey so far, including playing a BBC televised performance at Glastonbury in 2019 despite having no released music, and closing the Rising Stage at Green Man Festival in 2021. If ‘Secret Underwater Love’ is anything to go by, I have no doubt there are exciting things on the horizon for Roscoe Roscoe in 2022.

Listen to ‘Secret Underwater Lover’ here: