STACK January 2016 Issue 135

56 / 70

music was where her heart lay. Several
years and much hard work later, Platten has
just released her third studio album, titled
Wildfire; the musician's classical piano and
guitar training permeate every carefully
crafted pop song on the record, which beats
with powerful spirit-affirming choruses with
sometimes vulnerable, sometimes defiant
versus in between. Her performance on
Australia's The X Factor certainly isn't the
last you'll see of this lady.
Curve of the Earth by
Mystery Jets is out January
15 through Caroline
RACHEL PLATTEN
If it's traditional for an a cappella group's
name to involve a musical pun (see: The
Treblemakers, The Be Sharps, Voice Male),
then Rachel Platten's college group both ticks
that box and flips its hair. The
Trinitones – the all-female a
cappella group at Connecticut's
Trinity College – set the first
backdrop for Platten's musical
journey. She joined the crew of
young vocalists while studying
International Relations, and
after graduating with her degree
in 2003, knew for certain that
Jet Plane and Oxbow by Shearwater
is out January 22 through Inertia
continued
You can practically taste the
crisp new confidence in Not
To Disappear, the sophomore
release from ambient folk-rock
trio Daughter. The group have
clearly hurdled any anxieties
which the fame from the
remarkable emotion and scope
of their debut granted them; the
beautiful tumult of first single
Do The Right Thing is just the
beginning.
PANIC!
AT THE DISCO
Having shed all former five members of the
band (which at last count numbered three,
for 2013's full-length release Too Weird to Live,
Too Rare to Die!), Panic! At the Disco returns
as the project of founding and only remaining
member Brendan Urie. New album Death of
a Bachelor offers a little more soul in its emo-
esque pop tracks, with unexpected horns and
vocal choruses, and plenty of thumping hooks.
Wildfire by
Rachel Platten is out
now through Sony
The bucolic beauty of Texan five-piece Shearwater lives
to enchant another day, with their astonishing thirteenth
album, Jet Plane and Oxbow, soaring into view later this
month. Fans will not be disappointed with the beautiful
gravitas of this effort, which still finds room for mirth:
Jonathan Meiburg's vocals lead strange glissing harp,
trotting electronic beats and bass, heavy piano chords, and
oddities of percussion hidden just at the edges.
SHEARWATER
Death of a Bachelor by
Panic! At the Disco is out January 15
via Warner
visit MUSIC NEWS
56 JANUARY 2016
MUSIC
Daughter
Q1/The “messages in bubblegum under
your feet” (Bubblegum ): it sounds almost
like advice to yourselves, from your
subconscious. Do you attempt to tap into that
kind of gut advice when you are writing?
[Blaine:] That particular lyric came to me very
early on in the writing of the album and it was
very much a case of patiently waiting for the
right music to turn up for it to live in. The middle
section of Blood Red Balloon came from a voice
note I recorded in the middle of the night that I
have no memory of making. Ideas can come from
anywhere and that place you wander into on the
cusp of deep sleep is an incredible place to find
them. I wish I could freeze time in that moment
and explore it in slow motion.
Q2/There’s a beautiful melancholy
throughout Bombay Blue – did you write it
in India?
Bombay Blue is an experience that William
[and I] shared whilst traveling around India.
We came across a homeless Indian family who
were living on the streets below their hotel room
window, and [we] went down to offer the family
some money for food and a roof, but the family
refused to take the money or any form of help.
This encounter had quite a profound effect on [us],
and henceforth came Bombay Blue.
Q3/The vocal harmonies in Saturnine are
gorgeous: how were they put together, and is
it only Blaine’s voice, layered?
Thank you! It's actually all of our voices, and
the addition of Sophie-Rose Harper. We all sung
it in the room together. I believe Will might have
added a few sneaky ones in there when nobody
was looking. We've been singing and sampling
some of them live, which is working great!
Q4/There are some amazing synth and
organ sounds throughout the album – what
kinds of hardware did you use? Was there
much experimentation going on?
As a band I would say we have a pretty
healthy synth addiction. This album saw a lot of
experimenting with Prophet 5 and Jupiter 6. We
actually stole an old organ off a film set too, which
turns up on a couple of songs and sounds pretty
insane.
Q5/Did you spend much time pondering the
significance of the button’s role in your lives
while you were recording inside the factory?
Oh yes of course! We had to clear out all of
the button-making machines when we moved
in, which was a real workout. But in answer to
your question, we never really quite realised
how important buttons are, all shapes and sizes.
Amazing, really.
Recorded inside an abandoned button factory,
Curve of the Earth is the rather remarkable
new album from Mystery Jets. We spoke to
vocalist Blaine Harrison.
MYSTERY
JETS
Not to
Disappear
by Daughter
is out
January 15
through
Remote
Control