Nicholas Wood is a Berlin-based musician who’s best known for making up one half of the well-known synth pop/post punk duo, The KVB. During a break in The KVB’s busy touring schedule, Nick spent the summer of 2016 working on a solo album under the moniker of Saccades.

Having signed to London label Fuzz Club Records, the incredible debut record is due for release this Friday (28/07) and is currently streaming exclusively over at The 405, who had this to say: “Trading the synth-led throb and rhythmic muscle of The KVB’s output for hazy psych-pop, the self-titled release resembles the rarest and most satisfying variety of solo album: one with a Herculean effort to cram addicting melodies in wherever possible whilst retaining an inscrutable ear for texture and reverb-soaked detail.”

Recorded and produced by Nick himself, the twelve tracks on the album see him take a much more melodic, guitar-based approach. Serving up a vivid, immersive combination of jangling reverb-drenched guitars, hypnotising basslines, vintage 60s synths, minimalistic percussion and dreamy echoing vocals. Recorded using an old Tascam tape recorder, there’s a warm lo-fi feel to the record that manages to make the songs feel even more euphoric than they already are.

On the new direction, Nick explains: “The solo stuff I was making for the last couple of years had mainly been dark, experimental electronic stuff, but I started to grow tired of making that kind of music and I just had this urge to make something more song-based and ‘classic’ sounding”.

Prior to moving to Berlin, Nick used to reside in Southampton and he explains this move helped to shape the sound of Saccades: “As well as being quite nostalgic, I would say Saccades is quite a pastoral album – there are a lot of references to sea and nature. I think that this comes from growing up on the South Coast of England and now living in a city like Berlin, which is pretty far from the sea, with lots of industrial decay.”