VIDEO PREMIERE: Modern Hinterland – ‘The Lights’

VIDEO PREMIERE: Modern Hinterland - 'The Lights'

Modern Hinterland’s new album ‘The Longest Part of the Night’ is due for release on January 31st 2020 on Label Fandango. Following swiftly on from 2018’s ‘The Hoppings’ (which received support from Spotify’s New Music Friday Official Playlist), Modern Hinterland have morphed from songwriter Chris Hornsby’s solo project into a fully-fledged band.

Joined by Tim Thackray on Bass, Colin Marshall on Drums and new member Simon Shippey on Guitar, the band take elements of Indie, Americana and Folk to create a sonic melting pot with songs rich in storytelling.

The album is preceded by the single, ‘The Lights’ on 6 December – Check out the video below:

With a singer from Northumberland, a bassist from Wales, a Canadian drummer and a guitarist who spent the best part of the last decade in New York – Modern Hinterland is made up of 4 very distinct personalities, tied together through a mutual love of Neil Young, Wilco and Damien Jurado.

Having written hundreds of songs over the past few years which have provided the backbone for recent releases, Hornsby is a prolific writer and as he says ‘the band is becoming increasingly collaborative and I think we have found our voice on this album’.

With the new album, Modern Hinterland delve into the heart of life in modern Britain, “We want our music to reflect real-life – there has to be some sort of truth in it that allows us to get to something real and honest.”

“I was watching the rolling news/As I find I increasingly do” Coming at a time when the future seems uncertain and Britain divided, the album focuses on the personal, human elements that exist within the tumult of the present day through songs that feel like snapshots into other lives. Even the love songs are shot through with anxieties over the future; economics and lack of opportunity and it’s effects on people’s relationships.

“In the longest part of the night/At your worries beck and call/When nothing seems alright/When you can do nothing at all” The album’s title, as Hornsby describes, “is the time when your worries and concerns are at their largest and most crippling”.

Forms of anxiety and loss also surface in songs such as ‘Just Be Sitting With You’, ‘Why Can’t I See You?’ and penultimate track ‘The Lights’, which added extra resonance throughout the recording process as Hornsby explains “I was writing about loss and grief loosely inspired by what I experienced when my brother died years ago, and the day after I demoed the song my best friend passed away too, which I think sort of supercharged it going into the studio. It was laden with extra meaning for me.’

‘The Longest Part of The Night’ was recorded with Nainesh Shah (Flotation Toy Warning) at Snorkel Studios, Produced and Mixed by the band and mastered by Andy ‘Hippy’ Baldwin (Wretch 32/ The Who / Blur/ Oasis / Interpol) at Metropolis.

Listen to ‘The Lights’ – BELOW:

LIVE DATE

Thurs 16 Jan – The Finsbury, London – Pandamonium Festival – Free Entry

 

 

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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