We are honoured to premiere the new single from the brilliant Blackbirds FC, which is the title track for their upcoming album ‘Magiclands’, due out on 18 November 2022.
The single is a gorgeous shimmering track: with celestial choruses and an aching, melancholy feel and guitars that jangle like chiming bells. The band has an ear for delicious melodies and crystalline guitars that create a perfect pop package with an antipodean flavour.
Blackbirds FC have a keen sense of geography and place in their songs – with a poignancy linked to the profound effect of memories that are linked to the land. Songwriter Jeremy Gronow says of the track:
‘Magiclands’ is about a favourite place, a wild surf break at Woolamai Beach on Phillip Island in southern Australia. For me, it’s a calming place – the view from the cape is a great way to rest your eyes, and the white noise of the waves breaking blocks out your anxious inner voices.
This is a magical theme that can be detected in their earlier singles ‘Island of the Dogs’ and ‘Transport Planes’. The purity of the melody and the crisp crunch of instruments in this track brings to mind the solo work of fellow antipodean Ed Kuepper (The Saints): a mix of raw lyrical intelligence with robust, driving and expressive instrumentation.
Gronow recounts that the song was inspired by a walk along the beach as a south-westerly storm rolled in:
As the waves and wind pounded the coast, it struck me that they had come all the way from the great Southern Ocean to be there. Each wave was at the climax of an epic journey. It got me thinking about how everything is interrelated and how obvious this is in nature.”
Later during Melbourne’s lockdowns, I longed for the peace and perspective of Magiclands,. I read about the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh who said, “Enlightenment is the moment when a wave realises it is the ocean,” and the song became about how cities disconnect us from the natural world and in doing so from enlightenment.
The track was co-written with producer Cameron McKenzie and is as beautifully evocative as its themes:
‘Magiclands’ the single is available through all the usual download and streaming sites tomorrow (Thursday, 17 October 2022). The album can be pre-ordered in a variety of formats through the link below:
You can catch the band live supporting Golden Rails and launching the album – details below.
Blackbirds FC support Golden Rail’s Album Launch
2pm, Sunday 13 November
Wesley Anne, Northcote, Victoria
Tickets here.
Magiclands Album Launch
7.30pm, Thursday 24 November
George Lane, St Kilda, Victoria
with Tanya Lee Davies
Tickets here.
