New Zealand experimental, atmospheric, post-metallers Spook The Horses have released a new video from their third album People Used To Live Here released late 2017.
Says the band: “The video is centred around an abstract odyssey that presents itself in three stages, progressing and regressing through ambiguously symbolic landscapes and scenarios. This cryptic and dreamlike 360° video examines the familiar and unfamiliar ideas and memories that lurk and merge within the subconscious. The medium of VR was a very deliberate choice, simultaneously allowing the viewer the autonomy to frame the scene as they wish, yet also presenting zero ability to influence or adjust what is there. As the viewer, you must make the choice of deliberately turning toward or away from what is hurtling toward you”
Watch the eerily abstract Made Shapeless here
Imagine: if band members can rotate between instrument positions within the band, because every band member can play every instrument, then this must imply a seldom degree of freedom and mutual musical understanding…something that most bands could only dream of.
Spook The Horses are such a band. Maybe this multi- instrumentalism and virtuosity also explains the vast musical territory that is explored between the band’s 3 albums: while 2011’s debut album Brighter was defined by sweet post-rock crescendos, 2015’s Rainmaker was a much heavier affair, that would appeal to fans of Cult Of Luna or Amen Ra.
People Used To Live Here, in quiet stark contrast to the before mentioned, sees the band turn the distortion knobs way down, to a mildly saturated crunch tone, at most. “Writing this album gave us the ability to experiment with song ideas we felt weren’t appropriate on our previous albums“, Zach Meech comments.
The band’s most daring effort to date, People Used to Live Here explores the natural and immediate. Written and conceived in relative isolation over several grim Southern Hemisphere winters, Spook The Horses are defining their own sonic trademark with this album: an atmosphere of quiet desolation, raw and real, desperate and unsettling: the post-apocalyptic soundtrack to abandoned places, where people used to live, at one point in time, long ago.
“We deliberately isolated ourselves when writing this album to force us out of our comfort zones“, comments Callum Gay. “Most of the songs began as completely improvised pieces that we slowly fleshed and developed over time. We wanted to make sure that immediacy was captured and conveyed in a way we’d never done before. There’s much less between us and the listener this time around”.
People Used To Live Here is available from
www.nervegas.com.au/spookthehorses
