{"product_id":"bananagun-why-is-the-colour-of-the-sky-opaque-red-vinyl","title":"Bananagun - Why is the Colour of the Sky? [Opaque Red Vinyl]","description":"\u003cp\u003eFormat: Coloured Vinyl LP  \u003cbr\u003eCatalogue No.: FTH534LP\u003cbr\u003eBarcode: 5060626468085\u003cbr\u003eRelease Date: 08 Nov 2024\u003cbr\u003eGenre: \u003cspan\u003eIndie\/Alternative\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e To say that the intervening four years since the arrival of their debut album had been tumultuous for Melbourne \/ Naarm’s Bananagun would be an understatement. Released during the height of lockdown in the summer of 2020, the group were forcibly ‘scattered’ following the release of ‘The True Story of Bananagun’. Australia’s ultra-strict lockdown rules - declaring it illegal to travel beyond a 5km radius - made it nigh on impossible for the band to get together at all, with the only rehearsals requiring them to sneak past military checkpoints undetected. \u003cbr\u003e Coinciding with this too was a great period of personal change for the band’s guitarist \/ vocalist \/ flautist and songwriter, Nick van Bakel. “I had a myriad of mountains to be crossed which was pretty challenging,” he explains. “So I just cocooned into lots of spiritual side quests and soul seeking. Band members were travelling etc. so it was ages before we got through the stop-start stop-start phase and regained some band momentum.” \u003cbr\u003e This climate of upheaval does not go unheard on the band’s long-awaited follow-up, ‘Why is the colour of the Sky?’. While it’s by no means a pessimistic work - far from it - it’s an album that departs from the ultra-slick bursts of sunshine-pop and afrobeat that defined ‘The True Story of Bananagun’ and muddies the waters with a heavy blend of incendiary jazz and freak-beat experimentation. It’s Bananagun alright, but braver, bolder and more mysterious than ever. \u003cbr\u003e With the only conscious musical dictum being that percussion and groove was\u003cbr\u003ebrought ‘to the fore’ - and boy, is this album groovy - the band decamped to Button\u003cbr\u003ePusher studio Preston, Melbourne with equipment on par with any 1960s studio,\u003cbr\u003etracking with minimal takes - ‘warts ‘n’ all’ - battling through the temperaments of\u003cbr\u003eanalogue mixing equipment late into the night under the assertion that these more\u003cbr\u003etraditional methods provided the most, organic pure way to record. Also imperative\u003cbr\u003ewas to manipulate the social conditions in which the takes were performed and nail\u003cbr\u003ethe ‘vibe’ during recording: “It was all ‘attitude towards life’ and esoteric stuff, natural\u003cbr\u003elaw, how energy transfers, sounds, chemistry between people,” explains van Bakel,\u003cbr\u003e“trying to foster an environment together where we can make some magic, capture\u003cbr\u003ethe phenomena of energy and soundwaves interacting with each other in the room.\u003cbr\u003eAnd that was definitely what we wanted it to sound like - pro human.” \u003cbr\u003e In many ways, ‘pro-human’ captures the radical quintessence that ‘Why is the Colour of the Sky?’ is fulsomely jazz-shuffling towards. For a record that recognises, in its every breath and sinew, the humbling, restorative and life-affirming power of collective creative endeavour, it’s also a work that resists an ever more technologically-driven and isolating world that can feel ever more dehumanising in its quests for ‘perfection’. A theme directly addressed in ‘Children of the Man’, with its ‘Robo-sapien’ lyric, it’s a thread that runs across the entire record: “I feel like a lot of human nature and tradition is worth preserving because we’ve probably evolved to be this way,” notes van Bakel. “[‘Why is the Colour of the Sky?’] is all just about not losing your head and being over stimulated by the ‘goggle box’; the need for spirituality and nature; the need to be able to communicate and share ideas and adapt in a rapidly changing world without being judged and profiled. The preservation of human needs, so we don’t all get homogenised and isolated and poisoned to stupidity and obedience.” And what better way is there to feel human than by laying down a dynamite groove or nine?\u003cbr\u003e CD and Opaque Red coloured vinyl LP.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTracklisting\u003cbr\u003eBrave Child of a New \u003cbr\u003eWorld\u003cbr\u003eChildren of the Man\u003cbr\u003eThose Who Came Before\u003cbr\u003eFeeding the Moon\u003cbr\u003eGift of the Open Hand\u003cbr\u003eWith the Night\u003cbr\u003eHippopotamusic\u003cbr\u003eFree Energy\u003cbr\u003eWonder Part I\u003cbr\u003eWonder Part II\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Full Time Hobby","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44525653295260,"sku":"FTH534LP","price":24.48,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0130\/8714\/6043\/files\/lp_8425cfc6-43b0-4e9a-bcc0-0c4f419497b6.jpg?v=1728935305","url":"https:\/\/www.horizonsmusic.co.uk\/products\/bananagun-why-is-the-colour-of-the-sky-opaque-red-vinyl","provider":"Horizons Music","version":"1.0","type":"link"}