Avalanche City is a project that you most probably haven’t heard of, but thanks to this adventurous age of music production and proliferation you very soon will. The record is one of the more surprising New Zealand releases this year…
Avalanche City – Our New Life Above the Ground
‘Armed with a sack full of vegetarian single serve curries, Dave Baxter headed into the countryside and moved into a little community hall called the Kourawhero Hall, just north of Auckland. There he spent the week alone recording and playing everything himself with only the cows and the milk trucks as company.’
Avalanche City is a project that you most probably haven’t heard of, but thanks to this adventurous age of music production and proliferation you very soon will. The record is one of the more surprising New Zealand releases this year, and one I hope you will immediately download (which is completely free and legal to do).
The record launches straight into the banjo-driven ‘Love, Love, Love’, a classic sing-a-long that could easily synch with the latest iProduct television advert, which makes sense in light of the fact that Baxter creates various compositions for the medium. ‘Drive On’ is the quintessential summer trip song, with the call that ‘there’s nothing a bit of fresh breeze won’t cure’. There is a definite mid-2000s ‘indie-folk’ influence across the record, namely through early Death Cab for Cutie. This connection comes across strongly in the ‘marching bands of West Auckland’ sweeps and drum-lines of ‘The Streets’.
Our New Life Above the Ground is essentially a tale that balances the tension between the pressure of city life, and a singular yearning for the coastline. ‘The Citizens’, the first sombre turning point of the record ‘can see the (city’s) fear take over’. This communal sense of loneliness and despair is reflected on a more personal note in ‘Love, Don’t Leave Me Now’. ‘The Silence’ is a philosophical ballad on the nature of reputation and success, and concludes with the profound statement ‘all I ever wanted/ was a love that lasted longer than the silence’. In response to this seemingly hopeless situation, ‘Drive On’, and ‘Go’ speak of escape, of ‘throwing our cell phones out of the window’, and being embraced by the ‘arms of the sea’. ‘Ends in the Ocean’, a rollicking shanty reminiscent of a Bright Eyes track, again expresses this concept of coastal freedom, of ‘life breaking free’ and bidding farewell to urban captivity.
Due to the Bon Iver-esque nature by which the record was created, there are a few flaws in its production. However these minor foibles merely add to its endearing nature, making the songs more accessible. Our New Life Above the Ground is very much a pop album, one that does not shy away from the more serious questions surrounding ‘life about these parts’. Tying in themes of despair, hope, freedom, what it means to ‘love’, and the geographical implication of being a Kiwi, this heart warming ‘gem from left-field’ has found a way to treat the Auckland City zeitgeist, attempting to lift her citizens into a new life, where they can collectively cry ‘so long captivity for me’.
Verdict: Immediately go to http://www.avalanchecity.com and download it for free (or a donation of your choice). Go. Be a part of it. Summer is nearly here.
By Theo Sangster, 1 November 2010.
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