Music News - Bond Street Bridge Release Explorers Club: Antarctica and Plan National Tour
10 October 2013 - 0 Comments
Building on the success of their award-winning show The Explorers Club: Antarctica, Auckland alt-folksters Bond Street Bridge are proud to announce the release on the 11th October of a collection of songs recording the incredible stories of Captain Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton and the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. The band is celebrating with a national tour starting with the Nelson Arts Festival and including a series of shows at museums, galleries and theatres around the country.
Songwriter, Sam Prebble has turned a fascination with Antarctic heritage into a multi-faceted and collaborative work of art. After several months lost in books and dusty library shelves, poring over old photographs and maps and devouring first-hand accounts of adventure and mishap on the ice, Prebble emerged with a collection of songs recalling the hardships and celebrating the extraordinary pluck of the explorers who first set foot on the frozen wastes. Stories such as Captain Oates walking to his death, Scott freezing in his tent, writing to the last, and Shackleton sailing hundreds of miles in an open boat to save his men, waiting for months in a tiny hut sixty degrees below the equator, are retold through heartbreaking ballads and foot-stomping sea shanties.
The material on this album has already drawn accolades. Over the Summer, Bond Street Bridge presented the show to sold-out rooms at Fringe Festivals around the country, securing them the award for ‘Best Music’ at the 2012 NZ Fringe Festival Awards and invitations to appear at arts festivals, museums and galleries around the country. Described by the Dominion Post as ‘a perfect evening of music’, the show has already been used in the 2013 Auckland University song writing curriculum, and the band have been invited to play a series of shows at schools around the country.
In order to bring the songs to the stage and the studio, Prebble moved beyond Bond Street Bridge as a solo project and assembled a band of seasoned Auckland musicians; Dylan Storey on lead guitar, Brendan Turner on upright bass, Nina McSweeney on vocals and Logan Compain on drums were added to Prebble’s own guitar and fiddle. A relentless touring schedule honed the band into a seamless unit, enabling them to record the entire album live in single takes over a three-day period at The Lab studio in Mt Eden. The result has a warm, intimate immediacy with rich vocal harmonies and effortless interplay between the musicians; the sound of a band in a room playing their hearts out.
The tracks are complemented by beautiful original illustrations from artist Emily Cater, who studied the photographs and sketches the explorers brought back from the ice and produced a series of evocative drawings surrounding the music. These are projected around the band for the live show, and feature on the album artwork and in a range of cards and posters available from the band’s website. ‘Working with Emily has added a whole new dimension to the project,’ Says Prebble. ‘It’s been an amazing experience playing the songs all over the country and seeing the characters we’re singing about brought to life in her illustrations'.
To mark the October 11 release of the Explorers Club: Antarctica album, the band is taking the show on the road again, with two appearances at the Nelson Arts Festival followed by shows at the NZ Maritime Museum in Auckland, The Museum of Wellington City and Sea, Chambers 241 gallery in Christchurch, the newly-refurbished Napier Museum, the historic Oamaru Opera House, and several other appearances at galleries, museums and theatres around the country through October and November. Along the way, the band will share stages with such folk luminaries as Barry Saunders, The Eastern and 2013 Tui Award winners Great North.
‘We’re really excited about this tour,’ says Prebble. ‘Playing in these venues gives the heritage aspect of the show a whole new dimension. It’s a real honour to present this work in environments with such strong connections to the history of seafaring and exploration.’
Bond Street Bridge Tour Dates:
17 October: Nelson Arts Festival: Playhouse Theatre, Mapua
18 October: Nelson Arts Festival: Mussell Inn, Takaka
19 October: Hokitika Museum
20 October: Donovan’s Store, Lake Okarito
21 October: Cinema Paradiso, Wanaka
22 October: Blue Duck, Milford
24 October: Oamaru Opera House with The Eastern and Barry Saunders
25 October: Plato’s, Dunedin with The Eastern and Barry Saunders
26 October: Chambers 241 Gallery, Christchurch
31 October: Voyager NZ Maritime Museum, Auckland with Great North
8 November: Museum of Wellington City & Sea
9 November: Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui
15 November: Oamaru Heritage Festival Club
22 November: MTG Hawkes Bay, Napier
23 November: Rogue Stage, Rotorua
The Explorer’s Club: Antarctica is released by Banished From The Universe and distributed via Rhythmethod and DRMNZ.
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