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The Aerial Maps
CD: In The Blinding Sunlight (free Modern Giant CD)

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The Aerial Maps - In The Blinding Sunlight (free Modern Giant CD)
The Aerial Maps – In the Blinding Sunlight
 
"Adam Gibson looks set to join the ranks of fine Australian storytellers such as Paul Kelly and Mick Thomas" - Sunday Telegraph, Sydney

Moments, sounds, faces, voices ... the fragments of experience that stick in the mind for whatever reason, the things retained as memories from life\'s mess of movement – from passing through a small town without a set of traffic lights, from the person you met in the early hours of a coastal night at least a decade ago, from mysteries heard about at some indeterminate point in London or maybe just dreamt of in Brisbane.
 
I remember everything
 
Influenced by the bright landscapes described by Australian bands like the Triffids, the Go-Betweens, Weddings Parties Anything and Not Drowning Waving, The Aerial Maps is the creation of Sydney musician, writer and performer Adam Gibson.
 
Gibson, whose first novel manuscript was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Award and formerly bassist/songwriter of the band Modern Giant – an outfit which combined Adam\'s unique storytelling with guitar pop songs – has now taken his musical path an exciting step forward with the debut album from The Aerial Maps.
 
In the Blinding Sunlight is an album that resonates with the bright light, heat and distance of Australia, with the sound of wheels that have covered many kilometres, with all the accumulated memories of a life spent constantly moving around this country and the world.
 
These are songs which unashamedly celebrate Australian lives and Australian stories. Not in a sense of glib nationalism, but in a way that attempts to paint the stories of our lives as equally important as those we so regularly hear about in London or New York or LA.
 
"Broken Hill or Ballina are just as important as, say, the Bronx, in my opinion, so I wanted to try to give a sense of due credence to those places and that idea," Gibson says.
 
"And there\'s nothing like the light and heat of Australia and yet there is also a darkness behind all of that … where do those empty roads go, who is watching you as you swim at an empty beach?"
 
With like-minded people on board – Simon Holmes, former main man for the revered band The Hummingbirds, Adam\'s brother Simon Gibson, plus Andy Meehan and singer/novelist Lucy Lehmann on board, In the Blinding Sunlight is a compelling and unique work. (Simon Holmes also produced the album)
 
The album invites the listener on a journey on long roads to empty towns, to forgotten cake shops and the loves you lost somewhere. It\'s hot or it\'s cold, it\'s crowded or it\'s empty ... but seen from above, seen from an aerial view, it all somehow makes a form of sense. The Aerial Maps connect the dots between all of that and more.
 
Tracks
1. On the Punt
2. Be Home Before the Streetlights Go On
3. One of Those Nights
4. Everyone\'s Eyes are Always Much Smaller
5. As Good As...
6. The Shark
7. The Building of the Breakwall
8. Some Other Dream
9. London Still Exists
10. The Great Australian Silence
11. In the Blinding Sunlight
 
 

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Reviews:

A good story often makes a good pop song. That’s not always the case, obviously – what’s an interesting story for one writer can be a tedious narrative of mundane events to a wider audience – but in the right hands, it is often the case.

The Aerial Maps is the band title afforded to Adam Gibson’s pop music pursuits. Gibson’s debut album In the Blinding Sunlight is both a collection of catchy pop tunes and a narrative of events that, if not based exactly on Gibson’s life, are plausible enough to resonate with the most cynical of listeners. Gibson’s artistic style is evident within moments of the opening track, On the Punt. Part celebration, part lament, it’s a song about a father driving the family on long journeys on generic wide open roads, all the time thinking of the next race at Randwick, Flemington or Eagle Farm where $100 could be won, but $20 was more likely to be lost. Gibson doesn’t sing so much as utter a spoken word monologue, describing the scenes and the emotions that make up the story with an empathy few songwriters (Paul Kelly notably excepted) can claim.

That same literary formula is present in spades throughout the album – describing the magic of childhood in Be Home Before the Streetlights Go On, love gone wrong in One of Those Nights, the power of photographic memories in Everyone’s Eyes Are Always Much Smaller and the metaphors of beauty in As Good As... Then there’s the intertwining of local geographic and cultural history in The Building of the Breakwall, the power of fate in Some Other Dream, young adult holidays in London Still Exists, sparse Australian physical and emotional landscapes in The Great Australian Silence and a passion once known in In the Blinding Sunlight. Whatever the story, it’s all conveyed with a delicate pop sensibility that makes the best moment sparkle with joy, and the most tragic a time to remember.

While most of the characters, images, places and events described in these songs may have no relevance to me personally, there’s empathy that clambers out of each tune that makes you feel as if you have experienced it all. And that’s the hallmark of a good story, and – in The Aerial Maps’ case, a good pop song.

Patrick Emery, Beat Magazine

 

 


 

   
     
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