
Following on from the multi award winning album Moonfire, a hit record that took the Sydney based Boy & Bear and their music to most corners of the planet. The band have released the first single ‘Southern Sun’ today, the first taste and the perfect introduction to Boy & Bear’s second album ‘Harlequin Dream.’ ‘Southern Sun’ is ample evidence of the band’s recent time spent tuning in to — among others — Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and the musical firm of Fleetwood Mac.
‘There’s something really magical in their songs,’ says the band’s singer / songwriter Dave Hosking. ‘Hopefully something rubbed off.’
Chipping away at the new album ‘Harlequin Dream’ since October 2012, the tracks were recorded at Sydney’s fabled Alberts studio and were co-produced by Boy & Bear and Wayne Connolly (who’s won ARIAs for his work with Josh Pyke and Youth Group, etc). The album was then mixed by Phil Ek in Seattle, who’s made magic with Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes.
‘Sharing some music from the 70s was a clear decision that we made,’ guitarist Killian Gavin says of the band’s latest work. ‘What we’ve made feels older and more rounded than the first record. It’s more pop, less folk.’
The new single hit Hosking just as the band was about to take the stage at the 2013 Falls Festival. The sun had set, the audience was ready, the main stage was calling their name — and suddenly this slice of quality widescreen Australian pop descended on Hosking and drummer Tim Hart with the force of a hurricane.
‘We had these chords,’ Hosking recalled, ‘and the melody was spitting out and Tim and I just started throwing out these lyrics. “Write them down, write them down,” we were shouting at each other. It was like having a blank canvas and we were just tossing things at it.’
‘Southern Sun’ might also surprise the many fans of Moonfire, but in the best possible way. There are still traces of their indie folk roots, but with added muscle, extra texture.
‘We’ve gone more towards the classic pop structure kind of thing,’ notes Hart. ‘It feels . . . authentic.’