02 August 2024 - 0 Comments

Barry saw it written on a wall late one night on Russian TV, behind a reporter broadcasting from Odessa. Happiness Is Near became the thread running through this next collection of songs .

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When the world is taking huge steps, and we are sitting in uncertain times, waiting and watching can feel like losing momentum. Like fear and like doubt. This album is a reminder to move, to think and to act.There are still shadows in the trees, and there are still big clouds up ahead, but there is also something friendly waiting for you out there. Still possibility. Still an adventure to be had.

The movement of the road will bring joy, challenge, despair, hope, meditation, solace, and triumph. But mainly it will bring momentum. And movement is life.

In the middle of isolation and loss, from looking back, it’s easy to forget there are good times just around the corner.

Barry Saunders, “ I can’t work out if the world is changing or I am just standing still? In some ways the more things change the more they stay the same, I think people’s needs are the same, you can have the world you want, don’t have to join anyone’s circus.”

Some songs were the result of our work together and some had come to us solo. They were looser songs, less band, more reflective, more folky. Like we were looking into a void to see what the shapes were that made up this vacuum we felt connected us.

Delaney Davidson, “As the album began to stack up we looked for the balance. Just chucking the songs down. Loose as. Barry playing most of the lead guitar, pulling in some strange greek psychedelic spirit. It was made in the living room. This was a quieter collection. More folky. Just two guys with their guitars and their songs. “

Barry, “it’s been great working together we both have a love and a view of the world , some of which makes its way into the music, our conversations are as much about family, recipes, films and the way of the world, but music is at the centre of it.”

Barry’s childhood in the plains and rivers of Selwyn, singing together at my dads funeral, giving Barry a guitar strap with Long Gone Daddy stitched into it symbolising both our dads. late am TV broadcasts from faraway countries, a midnight drive together through the farmlands of Wairarapa his concern for people growing top today, for his two kids, our musings on outsider life, falling firework sparks slowly fading through the air into some deep blue river, songs written in dreams, a tattoo of a song bird, industrialism, capitalism, mad evil people steering the world into the ditch, blind greed, a doomsday fireball, flowers and children.

Our partnership has become deeper and at the same time more distant. Less time together and more care. It’s always amazing to see what comes from Barry and his world of green black windbreaks and burning white sun, magpies, pale grass and fresh crisp blue mornings, it always feels like home somehow.

Join Barry and Delaney On Tour, for an evening where 'Happiness Is Near'

“You can have the world you want, you don’t have to join anyone’s circus.” - Barry Saunders

Sept 27, 28, 29 Hawkes Bay Small Halls Sessions

Oct 12 Leigh @ Leigh Sawmill

Oct 13 & 14 Auckland @ Frieda Margolis

Oct 22 & 23 Wellington @ Suite Gallery

www.undertheradar.co.nz & www.delaneydavidson.com

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