LIMERICK indie stalwarts windings will drop their new album called Focus on the Past 5 this Friday November 12 on the acclaimed Out On A Limb record label which has a long relationship with the band since releasing Steve Ryan’s ground breaking duo Givamanakick..
The much anticipated new album from the Limerick five piece follows on from their highly acclaimed Choice Music Prize-nominated, I Am Not The Crow and Be Honest And Fear Not from 2016.
It has been a long five year wait for album number five from windings and to see the band play the album on stage will require a little more patience until a full tour is announced in 2022 Stephen Ryan told Limerick Posy.
“We don’t want to rush it because we are moving a lot slower these days because we decided to do that.
“It’s been a weird time for absolutely everybody. We’ve come out the other side with Irish musicians and bands eager to release all this amazing work. It’s hard for me personally as a music fan to keep up with it.
“So we want to make sure that when we release this album that people have time to listen to it. And then we’re gonna tour it next year and hopefully people will have sat with it a little while and then we’ll have sat with it a little while and we’ll be ready to play it live again.”
Focus on the Past 5 was recorded by Daniel Fox (Girlband) at Sonic Studios and the songs and lyrical themes evolved over the course of lockdown.
“We were looking at recording it in March 2020 and getting it out that summer. For obvious reasons that didn’t happen.
“So we lived with the songs and the songs matured. We were lucky enough to do one or two live streams over the lockdown period and that was such a great experience.
“I did revisit a lot of the lyrics. So a lot of the lyrics will be quite different from the 2019 versions.”
Daniel Fox is the bass player with the much revered Girl Band and has produced a host of critically acclaimed artists. He worked with windings and recorded the album at Sonic Studios. Impressed with his work in the studio, windings messaged Daniel to request a meeting.
“We’d heard some of the stuff he’d recorded with other bands, Silverbacks and Paddy Hanna. And also, of course, he is in Girl Band, so awesome!” Laughs
The band have a particular way of working, they write and develop their songs in a live setting for as long as it takes and then book studio time and record an album as a full live band in three or four days.
It’s very much up to the producer to take the recordings and find the right intensity and balance for the songs and create the best mix for the final product.
“We just liked the sound of everything he had done. All the bands he’d recorded that we’d heard sounded really different. He just seemed able to capture that band at that particular time. He just has a really musical discerning ear and he really served the songs.”
That final product is the album Focus on the Past 5 mastered here in Limerick by Richard Dowling at Wav Mastering.
The cryptic album title maybe refers to the years waiting to release the album or maybe it is a nod to the previous four albums from windings.
Stephen explains, “So it is the fifth album and the lyrics changed so much over the past year to what they initially were in 2019. Because everybody had a lot more time. I was ruminating and thinking back about different things and not necessarily in a nostalgic way but just thinking back at formative experiences in my life and how they kind of led me to where I am now.
“So I just thought that kind of tied in with what we have been doing with this band lyrically and musically over the past five albums.
It’s tongue in cheek as a lot of stuff with windings can be but I’m also deadly serious about it at the same time.
“This album is a deep dive into half remembered truths of youth, confusion and doubt, uncertainty and fear, the perception and resigned acceptance of the inevitability of end times, but also an awareness of place, and reminding ourselves to take comfort in the familiar.”
Focus on the Past 5 is available on Friday November 12 on Out On A Limb.
https://windings.bandcamp.com
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