Critical Heights

When comparing music to a geographical region, most of the signifiers come from verbal communication – the language, the inflection, the accent. Occasionally a band's country of origin can be determined from time and place, attributed to a point in history whereby a musical genre holds burgeoning cultural significance. Melbourne six-piece Alpine have had a meteoric rise since changing their moniker from Swiss in 2010, yet their Scandinavian sonic heritage continues to grow unabated. The band's burgeoning pop is bristling with sleek innovation, chic twists and an overall sense of intelligence, encapsulated in last year's debut album A Is For Alpine. Nothing is haphazard or quirky for quirk's sake; these are fully-formed ethereal dreamscapes.

2013 shows no sign of halting the Alpine avalanche with the group already having had an incredibly busy year, playing Austin's South By Southwest festival for the second time and meeting with their US label, Votiv Records. 

“It was an incredible time, an amazing experience, and [Votiv] were with us all the way,” gushed Phoebe Baker, who alongside Lou James provides the elfin vocals for Alpine. “We met them at last year's festival and they came along to all of our shows, of which I think there were ten. South By Southwest is a fantastic festival and celebration of music. We did lots of shows again so it was a lot of work for us, in terms of exposing ourselves to an American audience, but Votiv were with us this time instead of following us around. They are fantastic guys.”

The American release of A Is For Alpine is just one of many summits reached by the band in the past eighteen months, a fact that Baker still modestly struggles to fathom. 

“Gosh, we had no idea how big things were going to be,” she admits. “You never know what's going to happen with anything really, but since starting out as Alpine we didn't know if we would release an EP (2010's Zurich), we didn't know if we'd get the album out, and we were just incredibly proud and happy to do these things. It's taken us on this really massive trip of gaining fans and travelling all over the world. I think we're incredibly lucky; we're all friends as well, so for this to happen to us is a nice experience.”

The growth has happened not only in the band's experience, of course, but is also apparent in the lyrics on the album, which takes in more personal emotions and anxieties, something Baker laughs off as “the growing pains of being in your mid-twenties”. Baker believes that because the six members of Alpine were friends before the band formed and became closer because of it, that these emotions are felt communally. 

“I think a lot of the emotions we sing about in the songs can be quite general; I feel like we have been experiencing everything we sing about on the album and we believe most other people of our age have to,” she explains. “Yet being in a band, it's an amazing yet strange scenario. You're involved closely with six people where you're on a tour bus days on end, or you're travelling in a tour van, travelling in close quarters, you're putting on a show and wanting to do your best every night, and whilst it's an amazingly fun experience, it's a lot of hard work as well, so there are a lot of emotions going on. I think that playing these songs, especially when we are playing the setlist from the album, we have something deep that we want to express.”

While it sounds like that Alpine's song lyrics were emblematic of the band's experiences and then extrapolated to a wider audience, Baker is quick to state that they are indeed her and James' express thoughts and emotions come to fruition. 

“There was no set out plan, nothing was deliberated between the band with the writing of the lyrics, it just came out that way,” she stresses. “Hands, for instance, was written immediately after a break-up, so that was my deeply personal experience and the others can take from that what they want, whether it be lyrically or melodically. Playing these songs onstage is often a release for us; you can often feel crappy before a gig, then feel light and fresh afterwards. Playing a show can be like a confessional, you feel alive afterwards.”

Having a personal history with your bandmates before the inception of the band generally colours further what happens within it, yet so does the musical history, and Alpine's is more colourful than most. Each of the members' musical roots are anchored within quite disparate genres and styles – electronica, hardcore, classical – yet such an eclectic melting pot has lent gravitas to Alpine's unique pop conventions.

“A lot of the elements (of Alpine) and why they work is quite unknown to us,” Baker admits. “The friendship does help, but I think we have a very clear vision of what our sound is like, how we work together and what we're trying to achieve. And I know that sounds funny because how can you know what you're going to create, but we have a conversation, a point where all of the elements meet in terms of improvisation and writing, and we all look forward and enjoy reaching that point. There's room for flexibility too; we're open for anyone to come in with whatever. So with the way we write, what we like to listen to, we have an eclectic taste in music, yet we know each other and can cater for each other.”

There's an intrinsic element built into Alpine's compositions that lends itself to the ebb and flow of physical movement, and in particular the fluidity of dreams, something augmented by the overt corporeal sexuality of the Hands video. Baker is openly warm to the idea of being a dream-pop band in its truest sense.

“When I'm writing I rarely thing of the outcome, but dance is something we look into and want to delve further into,” she states. “There's something about being able to move to the music that we feel is very important. It's a physical way of letting it all go. Sometimes I'm surprised though at the songs people do dance to, it's not what I envisioned at all. Because when I think of our music it can be quite dreamlike – dreams can be eerie, and we are painting imagery that is often dark. Yet the music is fairly sleek, so there's this funny juxtaposition there. We get lost in the music too, so it can be hazy and when we are performing it's like a different world. When you're writing also, you're based in reality but essentially writing a story, and where the music is moving to you becomes something spiritual in a way. We have songs we wrote some time ago that take on their own life, it becomes something completely different, and that is dreamlike in itself.”

Alpine will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 24 April - Festival Hall, Melbourne VIC
Friday 26 April - The Rev Alley and Electric Playground, Fortitude Valley QLD
Sunday 28 April - Groovin' The Moo, Canberra ACT
Wednesday 1 May - Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW
Saturday 4 May - Groovin' The Moo, Bendigo VIC
Sunday 5 May - Groovin' The Moo, Townsville QLD
Saturday 11 May - Groovin' The Moo, Bunbury WA
Thursday 30 May - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC