The new album came together slowly but surely, Esplin explained via email.
"We used to be a couple and lived together in Dunedin. We wrote most of the album during this time, usually involving sitting around on weekends and writing the music and vocal lines together. Then we recorded the album in our spare room over the course of around two years. The instrumental side went quickly, but the vocals took a lot longer. We ended up getting some help with ... some of the trickier vocals lines, as it was getting a bit difficult for us to get the results we wanted, and a third party helped relieve some of the tensions of being a couple recording ... it did put such a strain on our relationship, but I guess that’s to be expected."
The album was finished around an extensive 2015 European tour, opening for Home Alone Music label mates French for Rabbits.
"We developed a really great relationship with Brooke Singer from French for Rabbits while touring the United Kingdom and Europe," Esplin said.
"Our relationship started when Robin cold-contacted Brooke after noticing French for Rabbits were coming to play in Dunedin and asked if Grawlixes could open. Then Brooke and John (Fitzgerald) moved to Dunedin and we developed a friendship, which resulted in being asked to tour with her around the UK and Europe. The rest of the band couldn’t join her, which meant that Robin filled the role of guitarist in French for Rabbits and I hurriedly learnt bass over three months so I could fill the role of the bassist in French for Rabbits. It was such an amazing experience."
Ihe pair’s video for Set Free had its creative spark while overseas.
"I took a video of a little girl releasing a lantern into the sky at a wedding we played at in Switzerland. As I was shooting it, I realised it would really work well for a video for our song Set Free, so when I got back to Dunedin I set about filling the rest of the video with relevant shots. This included mainly footage of Dunedin, which we consider to be our spiritual home, and one shot of a beach in Wellington."
Like the song itself, the video is tender, delicate, and melancholy: the duo ruminating "about the moment after a relationship’s end where you start to develop a truthful perspective about what has happened, what you have learnt and how life, wonderfully, will go on".
Slow, drifting shots of the burning, ascending lantern-like scenes from a half-remembered child’s lullaby are interspersed with point of view beach shots of the rushing tide lapping at your feet as the gentle acoustic guitar picks along, before the emotion ramps up as the song ends, while the pair harmonise "Now we’ve been set free ..."
It’s a line hard not to insert into the intimate narrative of the album’s creation — songs written together, sung together, even though they’re now apart.
Grawlixes play at Dog With Two Tails on Friday.
The gig, the video
• Grawlixes Set Free single release with Matt Langley, Friday, February 24, at Dog with Two Tails. Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz. 8pm doors.
• Head to thegrawlixes.com to watch the video for Set Free.
