The new album is finished and available now for pre-order.
It is released October 3 this year.
You can pre-order the album on vinyl, CD or digital. The vinyl is 2 x LP gatefold sleeve and includes a digital download of the album. The CD comes with a signed lyric print. Pre-order the digital version and instantly get the track Definitive History. There’s also a Deluxe Version on iTunes, which has three extra tracks.
For all details, or to place a pre-order for Havens Dumb on any format, click a button below:
(Friends outside Australia - it will be up digitally shortly)
THE SHORT STORY
After the band went ‘on hiatus’ in 2009, Glenn Richards opted to move from Melbourne to Hobart seeking lower rent and the chance to develop a working studio. This he did, building a soundproof bunker out of a small cave carved out of the wall of an underground garage in Goulburn Street, West Hobart. He began to write and demo songs for something, anything, next.
Inside of a year he’d been given the choice by his negatively-geared landlord to either eliminate the abandoned sibling kittens now in his care or be evicted. In his new rental lodging further up the mountain there was a large garden and a bungalow, which was duly converted to a more ambitious studio and sometimes speakeasy.
Communication amongst Glenn, Adam, Edmondo, Dave and Kiernan flickered to life. The idea of a new album was floated, one made in their own time, under their own steam; an album that was just made until it was made.
Within a year, despite two different wrists, one broken and one wrenched from its preferred location, and the perpetual problem of just getting together, Augie March began putting basic tracks down in the glow of the news they were finally, blessedly, independent once more.
In dribs and drabs over months and eventually over a year drums and bass were laid down at two different Melbourne studios. Vocals and assorted overdubs were then completed in Hobart, Brunswick and Yarraville by individual band members.
Of thirty-odd tracks, the list was refined to a smaller number. 14 tracks made the final cut.
The album is mixed beautifully by old friend and engineer illuminati Paul McKercher.
Its themes are various, but times passing, loss, dislocation, distance, new hope and healthy anger are coals in its fire. It contains elements of each release that has gone before and will be cherished by those who have kept faith with this rare outfit.
The album is Havens Dumb.
- The Good Gardener
ps. Third show back is close to selling out, details here