The new single ‘Skimming’ from the elegant Juno Point shimmers like sunlight over water and sparkles like a slow burning fuse. The reflective vocals – whispered, almost spoken, recall Lou Reed at times and there is a certain ambiance to the instrumentation, ebbing and flowing with the tides and starting and ending with a wash of water.
Nik Devenish (writer and singer) has a whiskey-soaked gravelly tone like the crunch of shoes on a pebble path. He says of the track:
…my words tend to swim a pond of ambiguity. Plucked out and strung together, barely written. Substances and perceptions anthropomorphised into songs of love/hate. ‘Skimming’ is about the longing and the crush in a relationship with sleep.
There is an ethereal beauty to the track that hangs in the atmosphere like a dream. The accompanying video is a lush and rich portrait of natural beauty that fits the music like a glove:
‘Skimming’ is out now and available to download and stream through the link below and here:
It comes ahead of a full LP ‘Lost Along A River’, due out on 12 February 2024.
Foster says of the band’s evocative name:
We’re all tied to the water… Juno Point is a landmark in the Hawkesbury that I love – the last place the river turns toward the sea.
The aquatic theme carries on into the album. Foster explains how the name of the album, ‘Lost Along A River’, ties into the name of the band. It’s a great example of the holistic nature of Juno Point, their name and the album title, the sonic democracy of each instrument’s place in the songs, the aquatic theme of ‘Nazare’ and the floods of ‘A Little Rain’ and singer/guitarist Nik Devenish’s description of his words as swimming in a pond of ambiguity.
‘Lost Along A River’ was recorded at the esteemed Damien Gerard Studios in Gosford (where Steve Kilbey and The Church are often found). Foster says:
It’s a fantastic studio and it has an amazing collection of microphones I was pretty excited to use. It has a big live space that allowed us to use the live acoustics of the room as an important part of the sound of the record.
Juno Point is another prime example of The Marrickville Sound – veteran musicians from successful bands from the eighties and nineties getting together to create new magical sounds and proving my old adage that creativity has no use-by date (copyrighted of course!). Juno Point contain members of Ukiyo-e, The Cannanes, El Mopa and Tweezer- all familiar bands from the antipodean indie music scene.
