Somewhere in between art rock and wistful pop lie Sparkadia.

"Many of the songs on this album are postcards I wish I had sent, and others are ones I really wish I didn't have to send," says Alex Burnett, lead vocalist of Sparkadia. Each track was written in a different room in a different city over the past four years, before being affixed with a stamp and sent to the renowned Miloco Studios in London, where producer extraordinaire Ben Hillier (Blur, Depeche Mode, Doves) applied his deft production hand to give the album an expansive, cinematic feel.

"Since we were kids of the 90s, we were blissfully musically unaware of the past and were in desperate need of new-old music," says Alex. "We were on a mission to write and record music that was less about guitars and feedback and more about melody, an interesting beat and a lyrical message," Alex explains. "We became obsessed with the art of creating something from nothing."

When committing lyrics to paper, Alex sometimes found that using a typewriter helped him to nut out the right words. "I began writing lyrics on hundreds of sheets of paper, but they often got jumbled and lost. Often most of it was random ramblings that were uninspired and unfocused anyway. Similarly, typing lyrics into a computer seemed a little too corporate, and it became even harder to type anything with any value. I then borrowed a typewriter and it all fell into place. Since the whiteout function didn't work, I HAD to commit and thus had to think harder and make sure that what I typed was quality. The typewriter also had a great sound when you hit the keys which somehow brought the best out of me."

The best indeed. Sparkadia's majestic pop songs have already paved the way for them to tour as guests of Vampire Weekend, Jimmy Eat World,  Elbow, Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, and Pet Shop Boys. Their first UK release “Animals” was GG single of the week, and led Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe to declare them “one of the breakthrough acts of 2008”.  The second single was B-listed  by BBC Radio 2  being played by everyone from Colin Murray's influential Radio 1 show to Terry Wogan, the UK's biggest breakfast show, as well as earning  them accolades from The Guardian, MOJO, and Q Music to name but a few.