'A Kiss On The Ocean' is the new single from The Dowling Poole, announces CloseUp PR

On 1 December 2014, The Dowling Poole released ‘A Kiss On The Ocean’, the second downloadable single from their acclaimed album ‘Bleak Strategies’, which was funded through a PledgeMusic initiative which saw the artists’ many fans coming together to get the project off the ground. The Sun said, “This awesome pairing results in glorious and slightly unhinged psychedelic pop rock”. Mojo hailed, “A classic British rock album heavy on power pop smarts” whilst Classic Rock stated, “Flawless and exhilarating, this demands to be the soundtrack to all of our waking summer dreams”.

Formed by singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Willie Dowling (ex Honeycrack/Jackdaw4) and Jon Poole (ex Cardiacs), The Dowling Poole have created something truly special. Jon Poole says, “‘A Kiss On The Ocean’ was an audience favourite on our recent tour, although the jaunty pop disguises a slightly unsettling side, since it's really a song by a narcissist, singing while staring at his own reflection. When we first started recording ‘Bleak Strategies’, I would write Willie little messages every day in red lipstick on the bathroom mirror just to unnerve him a little. I think that's where this song started although it took us a while to get the right measure of light and shade.” Willie adds, “Of course it was Whitney Houston who invented self-love when she sang her impudent, preposterous and self-indulgent nonsense, ‘The Greatest Love of All’. I'm still not entirely sure what she meant but I like to think that we went one better with this one.”

The single is accompanied with three tracks not on the album; ‘The Straw Man’ is a wry comment on the frenzy of confusion and doubt created by the Jimmy Saville debacle, and there is also a live acoustic version of ‘Hey Stranger’, a song written as a celebration of the life of Tim Smith, Jon's friend and former band partner in Cardiacs, who has been seriously ill for a number of years. This was recorded live in Manchester on The Dowling Poole's September tour. The fourth track on the single is the brand new song 'Fuck You Goodbye'.

Dowling and Poole have earned solid reputations as writers, session musicians and producers writing songs, recording and touring with a number of different groups and artists. In 1998 following the dissolution of his UK and Japan chart-topping band Honeycrack, Willie Dowling moved into writing music for film and television, working with some of the biggest names in British comedy and drama.

Influenced by pop masters such as XTC, Blur, 10CC, The Kinks, The Beatles and more, The Dowling Poole debut album ‘Bleak Strategies’ is an eclectic and contemporary mix of semi-psychedelic pop, somehow quintessentially British-sounding, laced with harmonies and a multitude of influences from the best of 50 years of rock and popular music.

"A Kiss On The Ocean" EP, 99 pence from Bandcamp