Wellington/Pōneke-based multi-instrumentalist Grayson Gilmour has announced Holding Patterns, his first full-length release in over six years due out November 3rd via Flying Nun Records. The album will be available digitally and on a range of limited-edition coloured vinyl.
Grayson Gilmour is a multi-talented artist, known for his songwriting, film score compositions, and performances. He has toured globally both as a solo artist and as part of the post-punk group So So Modern, with releases on various labels worldwide. Holding Patterns follows his previous albums No Constellation (2010), Infinite Life! (2014) (nominated for both NZ Music Award and the 2015 Taite Prize), and Otherness (2017). This upcoming release marks Grayson’s fourth full-length album with New Zealand indie label Flying Nun Records.
Today, Grayson has also shared the first taste of the album with the debut single and accompanying video for ‘Maat Mons’. While overhead projectors might make you think of school assemblies, director Jesse Taylor Smith’s creative video for ‘Maat Mons’ uses layered, melted, and backlit OHP transparencies for a unique stop-motion effect.
Speaking about the new single, Grayson says, “‘Maat Mons’ existential / cosmic wonder runs amok! Sometimes the seemingly interconnected nature of everything takes hold of my imagination in a song like this – how else can I explain writing about the astral plane, life cycles, our devastation of earth, and name it after the highest volcano on planet Venus? Think of it as the musical equivalent of a film like Everything, Everywhere All At Once — creating music is how I find myself in, and make sense of the universe.”
Curiosity is the driving force behind Grayson’s musical journey. Having released his previous multifaceted album Otherness (complete with its 360° music videos and web sampler) to critical acclaim, he is currently lecturing at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts, between film scoring projects and live performances. In the time since the release of Otherness in 2017, Grayson has become a parent of two. A typical response to becoming a parent might be that you slow down and make gentle music – while an element of that might be true within Holding Patterns, for the most part Grayson wanted to create rhythmically driven music that would allow him to dance through all the turbulence of parenthood. “Music has always been a form of escapism for me – a remedy of sorts – it always fulfills something that my life or surroundings can’t. I guess while I was tip-toeing around a sleeping baby during the pandemic lockdowns, what I really wanted to do was be loud! Luckily, I could channel this energy into my music.”
On the name of the project, Grayson says, “I was drawn to ‘Holding Patterns’ as a title for the album because it spoke to the sensation of putting my life on hold while I figured out who I was, and wanted to be, as a parent. The meaning is multifaceted – it’s inherently intimate, but it’s also bittersweet – temporary, fleeting.”
Curious to work with different instrumentation, Gilmour ensured that there is practically no guitar on Holding Patterns. Any conventional piano or key parts were eventually rearranged into winds, strings or weird synth textures. Consequently, Holding Patterns is the artist’s most collaborative album to date. Improvisation was encouraged in most of the recording sessions with collaborators – the instrumental ‘Holding Patterns’ was actually completely improvised and re-assembled in the studio.
Furthermore, the more people he invited to the album; the more enjoyable it became – which perhaps explains why there are so many contributors. Grayson came across Bryce Wymer’s art via a feature in Juxtapoz Magazine years ago and felt an immediate connection with it. He commissioned Bryce to design the Holding Patterns album artwork, and the relationship between the visual and aural have proven to be a perfect pairing.
“I guess one of the side-effects of the pandemic / working from home was that I became comfortable with contacting people out-of-the-blue. Bryce was immediately keen and we worked really well together – sharing a lot of music interests and embarrassing sympathies for cliché hardcore bands!”
Holding Patterns is out on November 3rd via Flying Nun Records and will be available digitally, and on a range of limited edition coloured vinyl; red, blue, yellow or black.
Grayson Gilmour – Holding Patterns
1. Oblivion
2. Here We Are
3. Forget Yr Future
4. Our Perfect Storm
5. Day Moon
6. ✧
7. XO Artefacts
8. Maat Mons
9. Holding Patterns
10. Lessons as Landfill
11. Did You Make It?
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