Praise for Terrible Sons:
“Their songs float on a tide of rare depth and beauty.” – 13th Floor
“Songs about compromises and cool heads, tracks such as the bright and wistful Easy Love and Sunset Swimming are the kind of deeply romantic music you’ll want as the soundtrack for the indie movie of your life.” – Otago Daily Times
“The Christchurch husband-and-wife folk duo have been quietly taking over the world, one stream at a time.” – Viva Magazine
“Terrible Sons makes music that’s quite tender, almost fragile. It’s steeped in folk traditions and sometimes, like on their song ‘What a Friend’, it’s quite breathtaking.” – Tony Stamp, RNZ The Sampler
“The EP Mass is honest and beautifully crafted.” – James Belfield, Waiheke Weekender
“Mass is a stark, quiet collection of deeply romantic songs that hark back to the sweeping indie glory of Kings of Convenience and Feist. It’s the kind of music that feels destined to soundtrack the idiosyncratic indie cinema of the mid-2000s. It’s luscious, organic and so, so intimate.” – Tone Deaf
“Terrible Sons craft songs like complex beautiful dioramas constructed from the emotional stuff of life.” – American Pancake
Today, Terrible Sons release The Raft Is Not the Shore, the anticipated debut album from indie folk husband-and-wife duo of Lauren (LA Mitchell, Fly My Pretties) and Matt Barus (Dukes). Coinciding with the release is a video for the opening track ‘Birdsong‘ taken from the new album. To celebrate the release, the band will play an intimate album release show at Loons, Lyttelton on May 13th. Tickets can be purchased via Undertheradar.co.nz.
Deeply rooted in their local community in Ōtautahi/ Christchurch, Terrible Sons have quietly and consistently been releasing music online since 2018, with early singles clocking up over 18 million streams. Their debut album, The Raft Is Not the Shore, was recorded over a couple of years in their backyard home studio, with producer Tom Healy (Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams) and long term friends and collaborators, including Tom Healy on guitar, Jo Barus (Dave Dobbyn) on bass, Joe McCallum (The Veils) on drums and Cameron Pearce on horns, with strings by London’s Urban Soul Orchestra and an impromptu choir from their children’s local primary school.
The stunning visuals for ‘Birdsong’ were directed by Charlotte Evans (Aldous Harding, Nadia Reid, Benee) and shot on 16mm film by cinematographer Ezra Simons (Earth Tongue). Matt explained the background to the video: “Birdsong is a tale of a journey. It dips into Koukourarata, Port Levy, which is over the hill from where we spend a lot of time in Banks Peninsula. [Director] Charlotte Evans sent us this beautiful concept based around these images of stark figures in a harsh, windswept landscape with billowing, Victorian costumes.The day we shot the video was an exceptionally hot summer’s day and I was stomping over these grassy hills. Ezra captured these beautiful, contrasted and vast landscapes with me as a solitary figure burdened with something unspoken and elusive.”
Stream / Purchase The Raft Is Not The Shore: https://terriblesons.ffm.to/
Terrible Sons – ‘Birdsong’ (Official Video)
Terrible Sons – ‘Easy Love’ (Official Video)
Terrible Sons – ‘Hold Your Light High’ (Official Video)
Terrible Sons – ‘Tomorrow Always Comes’ (Official Video)
About Terrible Sons:
Terrible Sons is the moniker for husband/wife duo Matthew Barus (The Dukes) and Lauren Barus (L.A. Mitchell, Fly My Pretties), who work and live with their two children in an intentional community near Christchurch. Having clocked up over 18 million streams on previous singles since 2018, the quietly accomplished band is signed to Nettwerk. The band’s string of sparse, yet intimate modern folk EP releases include their most recent, and much-lauded third EP Mass.
Terrible Sons – The Raft Is Not The Shore
Out April 28th via Nettwerk
1. Birdsong
2. Sunset Swimming
3. Easy Love
4. Asperatus
5. You Can Choose
6. Yelling In The Wilderness
7. Alright, Alright
8. Hold Your Light High
9. Tomorrow Always Comes
10. Watching and Watching
11. Young Blossom
