Labour Of Brotherly Love

"It was a very long and torturing process, unfortunately,” Pearsall laments. “It was just a long process from writing the first track to actually receiving the CD back in physical form. “It took a long time to mix, and we had a few unfortunate incidents with our mastering engineer – he had some personal items he had to deal with, so that provided some unforeseen delays – but we wanted to be very strict on what we were doing, and to try and achieve something that we haven't done before.”

But in achieving things, you do, or do not. There is no “try”. Everyone knows that, and Solkyri did. They just fucking went for it – they brought in vocals, vocalists, and a six-piece ensemble who, between them, played pretty much every instrument that could ever make a sound.

“We didn't really sit down and talk about what direction we wanted to take, but when we were writing we wanted to challenge ourselves and not do something that we've done before. I recall that, the first year of writing, we only penned two tracks because we tried to set the level and tried to achieve that level all the time, and at the start it was a bit challenging and frustrating, because we were like, 'Well, we're not really getting there,' but towards the end we did.”

Being used to writing and playing instrumental music, having a vocal element was a new consideration for the band writing this album, though even the most polished examples of the new dimension – such as Home, featuring the voice of Melburnian jazz stalwart Hannah Cameron – were not necessarily envisioned as vocal vehicles.

“Home was originally just a shoegazy guitar demo by our guitarist, Adam [Mostek], who just layered and layered and looped guitars,” Pearsall says. “And we thought it should be on the record, and we should all try and play on it, so we turned it into a pretty straightforward rock song. We brought it to the studio and it felt a bit empty, considering that it did flow through a kind of verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus structure, and our engineer, Dax [Liniere], suggested that we put some vocals to it. We were a bit suspect at the start, but [Melbourne post-rock band] Laura have done it well, Decoder Ring have done it … and we thought, 'Let's go out on a limb and give it a shot!'

“I think a lot of people have really grown to it. For people who don't really listen to instrumental or experimental music, [vocals are] kind of a safety for them. And maybe it's a good way to introduce them to sounds that they're not already familiar with.”

An even better introduction, one could argue, would be in the flesh. Fortunately, Solkyri are making northbound tracks our way. “Expect something that's very diverse, and three guys just going for it,” Pearsall enthuses. “We have a lot of fun onstage; we like to get involved, and we like to bring it down with some slow numbers as well. I think there's something for everyone, if people are open-minded and open to a good time… as cliché as that might sound.”