Talons – The Wild Places
Big Scary Monsters Records have announced the release of Talons’ latest album, New Topographics. It will be available on vinyl, CD and as a digital download from August 4th in the UK and Europe.
Influenced by a somewhat unorthodox writing process, the album is an exploration of the increased interconnectivity experienced in contemporary society, despite often being faced with limitations of a geographical divide. With members of Talons spread out length and breadth of the UK, their creative process involved ideas being sent back and forth digitally, before being expanded upon and arranged collaboratively during a number of weekends of togetherness in their hometown of Hereford.
The music builds on these themes surrounding the current state of “hyper-modernity” and attempts to dissect the shared relationships we have with the places and architecture that surround us. The album takes its name from the photography exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape”, that took place in January 1975; created almost as a reaction to more idealised landscape photography, the exhibition featured images reflecting the uniform and banal, casting a sharp critical eye on modern suburbia. The music Talons have created for their latest offering is very much inspired by these notions and serves to act as a soundtrack to the imposing conformity of life in 21st century cities.
Reflecting a change in mood and tempo from previous material, the band have incorporated a stronger neo-classical influence, as well as employing a much more rhythmic and expansive sound, heightening their emphasis on the dynamic range of the music, with a particular focus on the use of repetition and atmospherics.
The album was recorded in July of last year with long time collaborator Tom Woodhead (iForward Russia!) at Greenmount Studies, Leeds; a facility situated within an old church, which in turn provided the optimum atmosphere for the commanding orchestral sound of their latest work.
