Every year, Fir Cone Children reliably release an album. The Berlin-located dream punk project by frontman Alexander Donat was founded in 2015 and will unleash album number seven, It Chooses You, next week.

On the LP Donat leaves the indie rock sound of last year’s Waterslide album behind and now plunges into a thick sound-fog of hazy shoegaze and swirling dreampop that captures the listener for 35 minutes.

“Paint The Streets,” which Big Takeover is pleased to host the premiere of today, is one of the ten new songs, and it’s a hypnotic treat.

And on the song, it’s not brushes that paint the streets; it’s ice cream!

If you know the story of Fir Cone Children, ice cream is not a new topic, because which child doesn’t have their mouth watering at the sight of the ice cream truck? And it’s children that have been the focus since album number one, Everything Is Easy.

Donat started the one-man band to create some kind of musical diary on the development of his two daughters. Short two-minute lo-fi punk songs for the short attention spans of children – and adults.

In the meantime, the newborns have grown to be 6- and 8-year-olds and life already poses all sorts of challenges to the members of a family. This is even more true in times of a pandemic.

However, on “Paint The Streets” the problems are of a minor nature. During last year’s summer vacation, the Danish wind blew the ice cream and its sprinkles the family just bought from the waffles and ultimately onto the shirts and streets. A harmless sweet turned into a mess in the blink of an eye, and the summer breeze turned into a cool wind and freezing kids.

While the backstory is amusing, the song is atmospherically wistful, full of twinkling guitar chime, shadowy bass line pull, emphatically thumped drums, and Donat’s longing vocal tone. Sparkling light and ominous shadow play against each other on the dreamy, yet melancholic tune that is a harbinger of the end of summer fun…

It Chooses You is due December 3rd via Blackjack Illuminist Records.

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