Photo by Matthew Ream
Beloved instrumental jamband, Circles Around The Sun, have their fourth cosmic studio album, LanguageIt will land on Earth on April 28. The six-song, synth-drenched release leans into the outer disco-space leanings heard on their self-titled 2020 LP.
For the project, Circles Around The Sun, comprised of bassist Dan Horne, keyboardist Adam MacDougall, and drummer Mark Levy, welcomed guitarist John Lee Shannon aboard their ship to traverse the heavenly soundscapes of their collective dawn, which was performed at Horne’s home studio in Los Angeles’ Echo Park, Liberty Hair Farm. Long-time friend and tour partner of the bassist, Shannon added his imprint to help him swing through a variety of free-flowing genres on Languageincluding soul jazz, disco-funk and psych-rock.
Today we premiere “Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667”, the second single and opening theme of Language – following the title track from the LP which features harpist and Circles Around The Sun friend Mikaela Davis.
“Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667” is literally a journey and recalls the sonic expeditions of rock and roll pioneers like Pink Floyd and would fit comfortably inside the dome of any planetarium. Through the use of vintage electronic instrumentation and sequencers, and Levy’s steady, pristine groove, the band explores a huge amount of sonic space in a relatively short period of time.
“This was written almost entirely by Adam before the sessions. He brought it to the sessions as a voice memo demo, and we quickly finalized the arrangement and recorded the tracks,” Shannon told relic. “Adam and I spent the last few months of 2021 on an intense Pink Floyd early kick, and this song was obviously very inspired by revisiting those early albums. The result is a good old fashioned barn burning rocks and rollers. Easily the most aggressive song CATS has ever recorded.”
To aid in the digestion of the sheer volume of sound in “Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667”, Horne felt compelled to accompany the song with a video animated by Steve Mertens.
“Dan originally came to me with the idea of doing a sci-fi video for a song that he said sounded ‘spacey’. He had the idea that an alien race had built a giant ring around a star, or a ‘circle around the sun’. I set to work building a circular space city with 3D graphics and came up with a story in my head. He wanted the video to be really colorful and for the style to be somewhere between ’50s sci-fi movies, ’80s sci-fi toys, and a DMT trip,” Meterns shared about the project. “It ended up being the story of a dwarf and her robot dog, finding and freeing his female clone from suspended animation in an alien temple and bringing her home, where her mind melds. The band pretty much gave me creative freedom, which was a treat for me. The song is very cinematic, and being an instrumental, the video almost feels like a short movie with the song as the soundtrack.”
Watch the video and enjoy the premiere of Circles Around The Sun’s “Third Sunrise Over Gliese 667” below.
