Photo by Matthew Ream
Beloved instrumental jamband, Circles Around The Sun have their cosmic fourth studio album, Language, set to touch down on Earth on April 28. The six-song release, drenched in synth, leans into the outer-spacial-disco inclinations heard on their eponymous 2020 LP.
For the project, Circles Around The Sun–comprised of bassist Dan Horne, keyboardist Adam MacDougall and drummer Mark Levy–welcomed guitarist John Lee Shannon on board their ship to traverse the celestial soundscapes of their collective dawn – which was realized at Horne’s home studio in L.A.’s Echo Park, the Liberty Hair Farm. Shannon, a longtime friend and touring partner of the bassist, added his imprint to assist in oscillating through an array of free-flowing genres on Language, including soul jazz, disco-funk and psych-rock.
Today we premiere “Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667,” the second single and opening track from Language – following the LP’s title track which features harpist and friend of Circles Around The Sun, Mikaela Davis.
“Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667” is quite literally a journey and calls back to the sonic expeditions of rock-and-roll pioneers like Pink Floyd and would fit comfortably within the dome of any planetarium. Through the use of sequencers and vintage electronic instrumentation, and steady pristine rhythm from Levy, the band explores a vast amount of sonic space in a relatively short period of time.
“This one was almost entirely written by Adam before the sessions. He brought it to the sessions as a voice memo demo, and we quickly finalized the arrangement and laid down the tracks,” Shannon said to Relix. “Adam and I spent the last few months of 2021 on an intense early Pink Floyd kick, and this song was obviously very inspired by revisiting those first few albums. The result is a good old fashioned barn burning rock and roller. Easily the most aggressive song that CATS has ever recorded.”
To assist in the digestion of the sheer volume of sound on “Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667,” Horne felt compelled that the song was accompanied by a video, which was animated by Steve Mertens.
“Dan originally came to me with the idea of doing a science fiction video for a song he said sounded ‘spacey.’ He had the idea that an alien race had built a giant ring around a star, or a ‘circle around the sun.’ I got to work on building a circular space city with 3D graphics, and coming up with a story in my head. I wanted the video to be really colorful, and the style to be somewhere in between 50s sci-fi movies, 80s sci-fi toys, and a DMT trip,” Meterns shared about the project. “It ended up being the story of a dwarf and his robot dog, finding and releasing his female clone from suspended animation in an alien temple and bringing her home, where they mind meld. The band pretty much gave me creative freedom, which was a joy for me. The song is very cinematic, and being an instrumental, the video almost feels like a short movie with the song as its soundtrack.”
Watch the video and enjoy the premiere of Circles Around The Sun’s “Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667″ below.
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