Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving (Australia) Announce New Album ‘Oscillating Forest’
‘Oscillating Forest’ is the fourth album from Australian quartet Tangled Thoughts of Leaving. Having toured the world, earning a cult following for their sonic explorations of doom-jazz, post-metal and piano-drive prog on earlier releases ‘Tiny Fragments (EP)’, 'Deaden The Fields', 'Failed by Man and Machine (EP)', 'Yield to Despair' & ‘No Tether’, the band have emerged with some of their finest work to date. Sharing stages with contemporaries such as Russian Circles, The Ocean, sleepmakeswaves, Boris & This Will Destroy You has informed their experimentations, but they have pushed into a realm all their own.
Inspired by the sounds, intensity, emotion and life-cycles of the bush of the south-west of Australia, Oscillating Forest is a reconstruction of the harsh and varied landscape in audio form. As with the sounds and seasons of nature, the textures and tones captured here oscillate, pulse and modulate in a way that is not linear, predictable or safe; Tangled Thoughts of Leaving guides the listener through a terrain where danger and beauty are found and contrasted around every turn.
Tangled Thoughts of Leaving composed the album in the mould of an hour-long live set - a free flowing piece of music, ignoring the constraints of standalone songs and traditional structures. Instead, each track is complimentary to what comes before and after it, a constant transfer of searing energy and emotion, a cycle of constantly building and destroying itself.
TToL recorded Oscillating Forest in 2021 and 2022 at Studio Sleepwalker’s Dread in North Dandalup, Western Australia. This was a period of intense inspiration for the band, the first album written with Gracie Smith on drums - and second with Paul Briggs on guitar. There is a telling shift in energy and dynamics captured here - the chemistry and cohesion between Smith, Briggs and founding members Ron Pollard and Luke Pollard presented the opportunity to push further down the path of improvisation than previously captured on other Tangled records. Large swathes of the album were recorded live, with sections of improvisation punctuated by more purposefully layered movements.
The artwork by South African artist Caitlin Mkhasibe further explores these themes of chaotic energy and space in the form of a conceptual view of Oscillating Forest, marked in map form. The lines, contours, terrains, textures, detail and intersections of trails echo the intertwining tracks of the record.
‘Oscillating Forest’ is due out on Friday August 4 through Bird’s Robe with European distribution through Dunk Records
Upcoming shows:
Friday 18 August – The Rechabite, Perth WA
Tangled Thoughts of Leaving - Oscillating Forest
Sudden Peril (03:40)
Ghost Albatross (08:28)
Twin Snakes in the Curvature (09:53)
Seep Into (01:51)
Lake Orb Altar (05:59)
Trinket Forest (03:13)
Lamprey Strings (03:17)
Bush Wallaby (04:11)
Folded Into (06:09)
The Mantle (03:33)
Oscillating Forest (11:16)
All songs written and performed by Tangled Thoughts of Leaving.
Tangled Thoughts of Leaving is:
Ron Pollard - Piano, Synth
Luke Pollard - Bass
Gracie Smith - Drums
Paul Briggs - Guitar
