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Artist
Grand Atlantic
12+ albums
Brisbaneindie rockrockguitarsxsw 2010
about
Sometimes, getting a bit lost can be the best thing that happens to you. After a frenetic 2010, Australia’s Grand Atlantic could be forgiven for disappearing for a while. Tours of the US, Japan and Australia had gained them a swag of new fans, and their second album ‘How We Survive’ gained huge exposure and US airplay… so a strategic disappearance was in order. Over the later part of the year, around 20 songs were written and arranged by the band for their third long-player. The power-pop flavour of the first two albums gave way to a darker, more introspective set of tracks that tip the hat to the shoegaze sound of the early 90’s, while stripping back the arrangements to a leaner, tougher, more direct sound. In early 2011, the band bunkered down in Seacliff Lunatic Asylum, an abandoned psychiatric hospital near Dunedin, New Zealand, with producer Dale Cotton to record their upcoming album ‘Constellations’. As singer Phil Usher describes, “We had a few strange experiences while we were there—hearing voices during takes, strange sounds, and we also saw a microphone stand move like someone knocked it.” That strangeness, and the unease of not quite knowing where you are, informs the sounds on the record. The new album is sheer psychedelic sophistication, its beating heart urgent and undeniable. Yet the band is content to let the music build and peak, unhurriedly and with tangible conviction. Intimate and inscrutable, these songs bend and fold, stretch out and explode. Guit
