10 October 2022 - 0 Comments

Braille Records are proud to announce the release of Thrashing Marlin’s new album Wildlife, the first since their critically acclaimed Donkey Deep released in 2011.

Thrashing Marlin are David Donaldson and Steve Roche and Wildlife is the 5th album for this 25 year songwriting partnership. Donaldson and Roche along with Janet Roddick (as Plan 9) won the Sounz Contemporary Award at the 2021 APRA Silver Scrolls for their album The Bewilderness.

On Wildlife the duo are joined by some incredible musical talent of both national and international renown. US based guitarist Moris Tepper (Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Frank Black) contributes his talents along with drummer Riki Gooch (Cave Circles, Trinity Roots, Orchestra of Spheres) and long time friend and collaborator guitarist David Long (Six Volts, The Mutton Birds, Labcoats). Blair Latham contributes bass clarinet and backing vocals are taken care of by Janet Roddick (Plan 9, Six Volts, Songs Of Kurt Weill), with newcomers Poppy and Jean Donaldson adding some twin harmonies.

“We had the great good fortune to virtually meet Moris, one of our all time guitar heroes,” says David “and him volunteering to play on some songs after hearing the previous Thrashing marlin album was the push we needed to start what would become Wildlife. We recorded some tracks with Riki (Gooch), sent them over to him and a couple of weeks later got back some absolutely classic Moris Tepper shenanigans.”

Wildlife finds David and Steve writing some of their most personal songs to date.

Steve – “After the first three albums we needed to find a new angle to write from and so our last album, Donkey Deep, was mostly dark tales, written from different characters' points of view. With the state of the world we are currently experiencing we found ourselves writing a lot more from personal experience for the songs that make up Wildlife”.

Like The Bewilderness, Wildlife was recorded in Wellington’s Stella Maris chapel and again makes use of its fantastic acoustics. Wildlife was mixed and produced at Plan 9 by Steve and David.

David and Steve, along with Janet have worked together for over three decades as the award winning composing collaboration Plan 9.
Read about Plan 9 and their work here

They also make Virtual Instruments and Sample Libraries under the brand MODWHEEL.
Information on MODWHEEL can be found here

Listen to Thrashing Marlin on Bandcamp

Listen to Thrashing Marlin on Spotify

Watch a video for the song Surface Tension on YouTube

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