A Greater Whole

Over the past 18 months, Founds have garnered a strong fanbase behind an inimitable live show, however, they were yet to put their name to an official release until debut album Hadean dropped a few weeks ago. Was it worth the wait? Of course it bloody was. The record beautifully captures the band's ability to refine sprawling ideas into digestible songs, and with The Middle East's Mark Myers, the sextet have created the body of work that they've always threatened to make.

“He was an absolute genius,” Whittington exclaims, recalling the Founds' time spent with the musician and producer. “He let us stay at his place for two weeks, he looked after us amazingly, and he took us out and about to show us the real beauty of Cairns which gave us inspiration when we came back to record. He was up to 3am every night and then he'd wake up every morning with these ideas, and he'd put his touches onto the record – he definitely bought out the full potential of what we'd written.

“There's actually a song on the album called Courts, which is just Elle [-Louise Burguez] and Jamie, the piano and violin, that was inspired by the area, and also most of the intros across Hadean were all written while we were in Cairns because Mark would just take us to the most beautiful natural places and then we'd come back and songs like that would just write themselves.”

Hadean is built around a concept that follows the stages of the earth's development through song.

“It's about the creation of earth before anything,” Whittington explains. “The album reflects that by starting with the stages that have come through, like Avalanches and Caves representing people from those early times, and Cassieopia is like a constellation of the stars. The album is supposed to take you through the earth's journey.

“Kirstie [Ford – vocals] came up with the concept because we tried to record an EP midway through last year and it just didn't go well,” he continues. “She thought about this idea towards the end of that time, so between then and when we met up with Mark the concept just grew, then we all started feeling it and altering the songs to work within the ideals of Hadean.”

Founds are led from the front by the vocal harmonies of Ford and Burguez, and the 22-year-old Whittington has nothing but praise for the pair.

“It's funny, the rest of us always laugh because even when they're talking they'll just break out into harmony,” he says. “It's like they can read each others' minds. They could start singing together and within an instant they have a harmony and it sounds beautiful. Us boys just love it. It creates excitement and they just surprise us every time.”

Combining the transcending experience of School Of Seven Bells with the grandiose nature of bands like Arcade Fire and Sigur Rós, Founds' music hits you right in the heart. But as Whittington ironically explains, it's only through their disparate lives that they've been able to create a sound and a live experience so unified.

“It's six individual parts from six individual people,” he states. “Our interests are different away from the band – our everyday lives are different. But when we come together everyone just loves each other so much. I think it's really cool that we're all unique because when we write and we bring all those different parts together, its visual to everyone what is happening.”