AU59: Heliopause In The Studio piece

The Heliopause lads (and producer Ben McAuley) let me and photographer Rik ‘Panic Dots‘ Crothers in to talk to them while they were working on their debut album, which is due out early next year. They’re easily one of the best bands in Belfast (even though frontman Rich has recently moved to Brighton) so hopefully it will do well for them.

(Pic nicked from sarahluv‘s Flickr account)

IN THE STUDIO

HELIOPAUSE

WHAT: Debut album
TITLE: TBC (tentatively, Don’t Let The Silence Go)
PRODUCER: Ben McAuley
STUDIO: Start Together, Belfast
TRACK TITLES: ‘Little Ashes’, ‘Safe From Me’, ‘City Of Glass’, ‘Dead Ends’, ‘Epilogue’
RELEASE DATE: January 2010
LABEL: Furious Tradesmen Records

Following an acclaimed EP in Dark Matter and the recent single ‘Moment Of Recognition’, Belfast trio Heliopause have become the latest Northern Irish band to record a long-awaited debut album at Start Together Studios. AU went down to have a nosey at what they were up to.

Why did you decide to record the album in Start Together with Ben McAuley?
Richard Davis (vocals, acoustic guitar): We’ve recorded with him twice [before] now and I personally have noticed, the third time round, that why we choose him is because we know him, he knows us, he knows our music and he’s into it, which really helps. He’s like an honorary member for the time we’re with him. He’s really good for making decisions and suggestions, or just telling us that it’s pure bullshit. It’s really good guidance. And not only that, [it’s] the level of comfort that I feel when I come in here

How many new songs will be on the album?
Richard: Most of them will be new songs, I think. ‘Moment Of Recognition’, the single, will be on it – it and [extra single track] ‘Mon Peu Rimbaud’ – and we recorded a third song in that session, ‘The Moon And Sixpence’, and held it back, so it’s going to be on the album. And then we were thinking of re-recording songs from the Dark Matter EP because we’ve got a new guitarist [Chris McCorry] since then. One of the songs we are bringing across is ‘Dead Ends’, but we’re re-recording it with [acoustic duo] Albrecht’s Pencil, so it’s going to be a very lush acoustic version.

The last single was softer and more acoustic than the EP, which had its share of noisy moments. Have you continued in that vein on the album?
Richard: We’ve really branched out so that we’ve got a good handful of low-key songs and also upbeat songs. I think this is going to be a really good balance of both.
Chris McCorry (lead guitar): I think we’ve been a little bit more eager to explore the noisier side of things, without letting it be full-on rock or anything.

You’ve been around for about three years but seem to have built up quite a bit of momentum in the last year or so. Would you credit that to Chris joining last year?
Richard: Yeah, definitely. It was a big change because there was a point when Michael [Kinloch, original guitarist] left where we were a bit lost and we didn’t have a clue what we were doing. So whenever Chris came on board, we just kind of collected ourselves back together and re-found enthusiasm. We were really excited about what we were doing and really enjoying it, and Chris’s guitar parts are really great in the sense that there’s a lot of noise and loudness and experimentation in there, but it melds so much better with the acoustic stuff and ideas that I come up with. It’s created a new dynamic.

Do you have any plans to tour the album?
Richard: Yeah, I’d really like to. We have a gig booked in London for the end of October, so we really need to get ahead with booking dates around that. But then we provisionally have January booked for releasing the album and we’ll coincide that with a proper tour, hopefully.