HartsLate last year, venerated guitarist and singer-songwriter Harts began serving as mentor to Australia's first-ever wholly virtual band as part of an initiative from the National Broadband Network (nbn) to demonstrate the distance-defeating power of online collaboration.
The Power hit-maker joined forces with musos Rowena Wise (Melbourne), Lily Mills (aka Leo, from Wollongong), and Jayden Rando (Bunbury) to craft a song from scratch via the nbn, without ever setting foot in the same room as each other.
Fast-forward three months, and the group — dubbed Two Sense — have unveiled their debut single, Firefly, a delicate electro-tinged pop tune that has come together quite beautifully indeed, especially given the constraints against which the trio and their mentor were working. For his part, Harts seems to think so too:
"It’s been incredible to mentor such talented musicians in this cross-country collaboration and see how the internet is transforming the world of music," he said in a statement.
"We have been developing and pushing the boundaries in the creation of Firefly, discovering that music today is limitless. It is a beautifully earthy track, integrating digitally produced sound with a raw, folk guitar melody."
The members of the band also seem to be ecstatic with the experience, with Wise describing it as "a true milestone" in her career, Rando calling it "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the concept of borderless music creation", and Mills summing the whole thing up as "unbelievable".
"I never would have thought that I'd be collaborating with artists across the country to produce such an amazing first track over the internet," she enthused in a statement. "I'm excited to be at the forefront of a unique musical collaboration, and look forward to seeing where new innovations will take music next."
You can check out Firefly and its accompanying music video (ft. bonus bird!) below, and read more about their journey on their blog.
