Whateverly is out now!

Whateverly, our third album is available now on Spotify and Apple Music. Written and recorded across timezones and continents, it's a sonic exploration of places real, imaginary and in-between, a jangle of bittersweet observations and playful imperfections.

Music for uncertain times

Uncertainty - and what you do with it - is a thread that binds the ten tracks on Whateverly.

Uncertainty can be creative fuel or paralysis. Sometimes it's both.

“I hear a jangle in my ears / I taste the sweat of the years / In the end / We will break before we bend”

Whateverly’s woozy, world-weary feeling is contrasted with wry observations, sonic puns, and imaginary escapes (from the split shift at the Pawn ‘n’ Thrift, even):

“Oh you’ve never heard such thunder / Ancient treasures and plunder / At least I’ll trade you / The very best part of my broken heart.”

Uncertainty can throw you off your keel, and this feeling is reflected in the sound – an acknowledgment of the imperfection of human playing. Belts and pulleys not fully tightened, cogs and gears requiring careful drops of oil, and transient oscillations coming in and out of harmonic resonance.

Music from elsewhere

With band members Richard Wheels and Andrew Taylor writing and mixing in Auckland, and Tom Cosmic inventing in the opposite hemisphere, the album was recorded across oceans and timezones. Distance plus time = new themes, new sounds.

The texture is, like everything else, a little uncertain. Guitars plink like thumb pianos as each instrument finds its place in the mix. Vocals overlap and originate from many distances and directions. Acoustic instruments are treated like samples while the synthetic is circuit-bent to sound more human.

In this “strange and wonderful world”, the band writes songs via Skype, recordings are pieced together like a puzzle, and the result is, well, Whateverly.

Spotify

Apple Music