the Travellers

One of the many reasons I love working on Poptastic Bride is that I get to meet really cool people such as this couple I’m about to introduce you to.

The Travellers, composed of Gemma and Robert, is an indie alternative duo from the UK and France who aims to take you on a musical journey of sixties psychedelia and seventies groove with a modern twist. They are signed with Expat Records and have just released an EP titled “For the Waves” inspired by the sea, the sixties and a desire to get “back to basics”.

Our cool love song for this week happens to be one of the tracks in the EP. It’s called “Never and Ever” and is a sweet little love song that pulls you in with a catchy intro riff and then keeps you mesmerized with a beautiful lulling melody reminiscent of warm, lazy summer days at the beach… which is perfectly illustrated in their charming music video for the song. Watch it (and listen to the song) below:love their retro music — and fashion — style! Don’t you? As for the inspiration behind the song, Gemma offered this reply:

Robert and I met long time ago in Germany, about 15 years ago, and our love was the inspiration when we both wrote the song! I remember I was so excited to spend all my life with Robert and every day we had something new to share, with the music and our travelling around the world . :) - poptastic bride

Sixties-inspired duo The Travellers – consisting of Italian Gemma and Anglo-Swedish Robert.P – met while travelling, hence the name. The combination of the cultural experiences, landscapes seen, as well as their love for Sixties and Seventies psychedelia, groove and rock paved the way for their new and unique sound. We’ve chatted to singer Gemma to find out a little more about her love for the Sixties and which Sixties bands she thinks everyone should know.

QueensOfVintage: How did you get into singing?

Gemma: I always loved singing. When I was four I remember I used to put my head inside the washing machine to listen to my voice with a metallic reverb !
I took piano lessons when I was nine and started to play in different bands when I was 15.

QoV: How did you get into vintage?

Gemma: I have always been fascinated by the old movies, I’ve always wanted to know how people lived before and how women dressed, this is why I got into vintage. I studied interior design, and I love to recreate and live in the past.QoV: Your sound and look is both very Sixties – what fascinates you about this decade?

Gemma: I love the Sixties – I genuinely think all the good music comes from that period, the sound is very organic, you cannot compare it with the sound of today. When I met Robert, the guitarist of our band, we both loved the same music and era. Sixties design and clothes are very inspiring, some of the decade’s innovative designers still influence fashion today.

QoV: Tell us about your vintage shopping habits. Any particular brands you like?

Gemma: I love Biba, Pierre Cardin, Courrèges, YSL, Mary Quant, Ossie Clark, and Pucci for his colorful psychedelic prints. I do wear vintage everyday and have a very big collection of vintage clothes and shoes, some from my mum and for the rest I love shopping around SouthLondon and Paris, but I make the best deals on the internet on eBay or Etsy !

QoV: What are your top five 60s bands everyone should know?

Gemma: The Moody Blues, The Attack, Shocking Blue , The Creation and I love The Ronettes. I’m also a big fan of Dusty Springfield and Emma Peel !

- Queens of Vintage UK

The Travellers bring together an exotic potpourri of jazzy rhythms, psychedelic warblings and rich shoegazey guitars and, in the process, turn them all into something that wouldn't sound terribly out of place on the Twin Peaks soundtrack. "Mermaid in May" especially combines all the above elements in the most cohesive way, with Gemma's vocals swirling like smoky wisps above the eerie instrumentation by bandmate Robert P. Still rough around the edges, The Travellers are halfway to somewhere great. - paul - 75 or less US

We are Pop : The Travellers

Coup de coeur des PIOF pour le groupe programmé par la salle, The Travellers et leur pop 60's ensoleillée. On craque pour la très belle voix de la chanteuse Gemma et le jeu de guitare de Robert. Le groupe me fait parfois penser aux Sundays, charmant. Bien sûr le concert est calme mais tout est en place, un très bon moment. Un batteur et bassiste viennent de les rejoindre, un groupe à suivre ! Leur dernier ep en vinyle “For the Waves” vient d’être signé sur “Expat Records”, un label indie Us (5 titres en écoute là). - Pop is on fire FR

Bands choose their names for all sorts of reasons. The Travellers background atually has involved a lot of travelling, with Italian vocalist Gemma Marchi and her Anglo Swedish partner Robert P variously writing and recording their music across Europe; their resume quotes ideas and inspirations gathered in Rome, Dusseldorf, Stockholm, Zurich, and several other stops on the eurorail routes. They then moved to London to record the follow up to their first, more experimental 'Tapping Teapots' album, and the resultant 5 track mini album is a melange of accumulated styles, retro pop and vibey guitar tunes, enlivened with Gemma's soaring, yearning vocal.

First track 'Waiting' is a noir-ish,jangling torch ballad, Gemma's voice gliding over the gritty guitar notes with the effortless grace of Lykke Li eating a Baked Alaska. The deceptively low key 'Leaning On The Wind' suddenly bursts into what sounds like a six string duel, with Robert P clicking his distortion pedal on and off so fast that it sounds like two guitars. A neat trick smartly handled ; The Travellers restless search for fresh influences has also included gaining quite some technical mastery. 'Never And Ever' is a more reflective number, revealing a jazzy touch that all that urban musical exploration inevitably brings, and 'Talk To Me' reveals a harder edged side to their sound, approaching the stuttering neuroses of The Kills or Panic! At The Disco (if they were a duo). Finally, 'Rain' is a song blessed with one of those naggingly familiar chord sequences that you know you recognise but cannot exactly remember where you heard it first. If The Travelllers wanted to subtly but determinedly unsettle their listeners, they've more or less succeeded by the final track.

'For The Waves' is a more than just an intro to a band whose experience and skill bring a very real light and warmth to the disjointed and occasionally soulless world that anyone who travels a lot will recognise instantly. My only minor complaint is that, during all those euro-wide ramblings, didn't The Travellers find an actual label to release their brightly performed, subtly ironic and sophisticated music? If they continue to produce songs of this quality, that should change, and soon. - Tasty Fanzine uk

The travellers ‘for the waves’ (self released). Second EP from Italo / Swedish duo the Travellers may just prove - given the right amount of airplay - something of a slow to burn gem drawn with simplicity and an off guarded seduction. The 5 smoked chamber toned cuts within arc, sigh, swerve and swoon their way past your defences like lovelorn arrows braced to the slyly sensual chemistry being weaved between Robert P’s clipped 60’s soft psyche twang riff struts (best heard on the subtly dark chic swagger of ‘talk to me’) and Marchi’s surrendering vocal quiver - itself needing to be heard to be believed especially on the aching opener ’waiting’ which aside laying you low with sympathetic pangs traced to a Francophile chic dimpled and trimmed to the darkening sultry purr of a youthful Chrissie Hynde while ’leaning on the wind’ retreads a vibe more commonly co-opted by the Beangrowers. Admirers of the Sundays - and why wouldn’t you be - will do well to fast forward to the utterly captivating ’never ever’ which finds itself bedded upon a most desirable and spectral Marr / Reilly like pastoral incline. All said and typical of these things it’s the parting ’rain’ that provides the sets centrepiece, embraced in layers of Will Sergeant-esque shimmers and dinked with oodles of kaleidoscopic curvatures and noir tinged shadow playing that much recalls fellow Italians Musetta as though rephrasing the Stranglers ’la folie’. - Losing Today uk

Whether you are looking for a good soundtrack for excursions during these summer months or are secretly a fan of psychedelic, colourful and carefree music of the 60's and the 70's, we present to you The Travellers.

The Travellers are an indie pop duo fronted by Gemma Marchi, Italian vocalist, and Robert P, Anglo-Swedish guitarist, who have been recording and showcasing their music across the Europe. They have been recently signed to Expat Records, one of the largest indie record labels in the world, and released an E.P. "For The Waves".

The band's songs are like a fresh breath of air in the age of over-produced, mass marketed "hits", and offer a very much needed alternative on the pop music market.

"Talk To Me" is a rather up-beat, bold song, but the raggedy, jangly guitar riffs and strong, confident drums are sweetened by an airy, almost angelic vocals by Gemma. The music has a Quentin Tarantino's movie vibe to it, which proves the edginess and quirkiness of the song, but also showcases the quality of the music and level of skill and talent of the duo.Just like the latter song, "Interview The Moon" has a specific ambience, mixing soft, whispering drums, delicate piano chords and velvety, siren vocals with imposing guitar strums. "Waiting" on the other hand, is a perfect example of a romantic song, picturing longing of one's soul, with mesmerizing vocals and 50's like guitar and bass patterns. This would be a perfect hit for a prom dance and late hot summer nights spent with a loved one. Great vocal melody exposes the skills of the vocalist, who glides effortlessly on the scales, enriching a fantastic play of the rhythm guitar.

We highly recommend you explore other songs by The Travellers, as every single one of them is simply a gem. You can find them on Facebook , listen to their music on MySpace or SoundCloud, and follow them on Twitter. - Music Hive uk

The Travellers – Waiting [mp3] (Expat Records)
Enchanting indie pop with clean production and Catatonic female vocals. - The Dadada

The Travellers
I once recorded a French singer who had learned English by listening to Corrs albums: her take on pronounciation was individual, to say the least. Something of the sort seems to be going on with The Travellers, but for the most part they use it to their advantage. Gemma Marchi’s vocals, with their heavy yet non-specific European accent, drift like Gitanes smoke above a psychedelic melange of roomy drum loops and tremoloed guitars, adding a possibly spurious air of glamour and sophistication. Close your eyes and you begin to see miniskirted and polo-necked couples, grooving away to the light of oil projectors in a basement club somewhere in the seedier parts of ’60s Amsterdam. Or perhaps that’s just me. Sam Inglis - Sound On Sound Magazine UK