02 August 2019 - 0 Comments
Ivy League Records is honoured to release the timeless second album by The Teskey Brothers, Run Home Slow, out everywhere today. Featuring singles Hold Me, Man Of The Universe and striking album centrepiece So Caught Up, Run Home Slow pushes the band’s music in new directions without sacrificing the charm and authenticity of their much-loved 2017 breakthrough debut, Half Mile Harvest.
To celebrate the release, the band have announced their highly anticipated Run Home Slow album tour for this November and December. Kicking off with nine dates in Australia before the final show in Auckland, NZ. Tickets on sale this Wednesday 7 August at 11.00am NZST.
Since the announcement of Run Home Slow in May, The Teskey Brothers have barely come up for air, having played to sold out crowds across Melbourne, Sydney, New York, LA, San Francisco, Denver, Toronto and more, as well as mammoth crowds at Latitude Festival (UK), Firefly (US), Bonnaroo (US) and most recently, arriving home to play at Splendour in the Grass. While in the States, the band’s debut TV performance on CBS Saturday resulted in their debut album Half Mile Harvest climbing to #5 on the US iTunes Chart.
Largely written over the last two years, while relentlessly touring the world in support of their debut, Run Home Slow finds the band in a contemplative and reflective mood. The album cascades with shuffling rhythm and guitar stabs coated in Josh Teskey’s era-defying, honeyed croon. Having spent the previous decade quietly honing their craft in relative obscurity while holding down day jobs, The Teskey Brothers suddenly found themselves in new territory.
“For the last two years we’ve been touring and playing music and been lucky enough to make music a vocation,” Brendon says. “But with that has come challenges in our personal lives as far as the pressure it can put on your home life and the balance you need to find.” Songs like ‘Let Me Let You Down’ and ‘Paint My Heart’ deal with that directly. Of the latter guitarist Sam Teskey says, “That one’s about trying to hold a relationship together from a distance.”
Man Of The Universe similarly touches on the dislocation you can feel when you’re constantly on the move, not sure where you call home. But it also revels in this freedom. “The simple subject of the song is, stop trying to label everything, and say we’re from here, or this place is better than that or these people are better than those,” singer and guitarist Josh says. “It’s a real coming together of everything song, saying ‘Hey, don’t put a label on me!’”
Avoiding labels is something that The Teskey Brothers have also strived for musically on Run Home Slow, incorporating elements of southern rock on Paint My Heart, Americana on San Francisco, psychedelia on Sun Come Ease Me In and Dixieland jazz on Sunshine Baby.
There’s a taste of gospel in the glorious, celebratory and near-acapella first single Hold Me, which is stripped-back to its most rudimentary, almost primal form; boots stomping on floorboards, claps holding the beat and four friends harmonising around a single microphone. Josh rouses the pack with opening line: “That storm coming down hard, I’m your shelter anytime it starts”.
Perhaps the most surprising on the album is current single, So Caught Up. When the band first started jamming on the song they were a bit disarmed by the poppy new territory they found themselves in. “I guess we were a bit worried about it being too much of a pop song and wanted to make sure that it didn’t sound like a huge departure,” Liam says. “It was a bit different to what we’d normally play,” Brendon says. “But we were also quite excited about that.”
Choosing to end the album with That Bird, a song that came to Josh in a dream while camping in the Colorado wilderness, is the perfect closer. A gentle reflective groove, with a sentiment that Brendon reckons sums up the mood of the album perfectly. “It’s basically a conversation ruminating on this idea,” he says. “Is it better to live in the present and forget about the past or is it better to learn from the past and try and use those mistakes to grow from?”
In Run Home Slow, The Teskey Brothers have made an album that honours their past, resonates wonderfully in the present and looks forward to a continually brighter future. With their live show widely celebrated, fans eager to catch the band bringing Run Home Slow to like, are urged to get in early when tickets go on sale on Wednesday 7th August at 11am NZST.
THE TESKEY BROTHERS
RUN HOME SLOW ALBUM TOUR
AUSTRALIA + NEW ZEALAND
NOVEMBER - DECEMBER
Pre-sale runs from: Monday 5 August (11.00am NZST)
General on-sale from: Wednesday 7 August (11.00am NZST)
All dates and tour details at theteskeybrothers.com
Saturday 7 December | Powerstation, Auckland
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