It’s been five years since British anthemic rockers Doves went on an indefinite hiatus (and nearly 25 years since their first musical incarnation, youthful house-pop act Sub Sub). From the ashes emerges Black Rivers, a harder, scuzzier duo, formed by the band’s twin brothers, Jez and Andy Williams.
The video to “Age of Innocence,” the second single from their self-titled debut, is a bespoke edit of Wim Wenders’ hypnotic and stripped-back classic documentary Tokyo-Ga, the frantic and nostalgic song matching perfectly the raw energy of the 1980s American-obsessed Japanese youth culture captured by the German auteur.
When the diary-like film was first released in 1985, Wenders noted that Tokyo was “no longer ordered but threatening and disordered” – an apt description for the rapturous, electro-rockabilly of Black Rivers.