New Zealand indie favourites Marlin’s Dreaming have amped up our anticipation for their upcoming album Hasten with a stunning new single and video, Trophies.
After releasing Lumia back in August, Marlin’s Dreaming are marking our southern hemisphere springtime with Trophies, an effortless dreamscape that makes you want to lie on a grassy hill with a spliff while looking up at the clouds.
Trophies has been released with an accompanying, extended music video that reciprocates the song’s moody undertow with a London-esque ambiance showcasing the mundanities of everyday life; commuting to work, engaging with the same monotonous routine, and eventually, doing something about it.
Recorded with Warwick Donald at Building M in Wellington with acoustics and vocals later tracked in Dunedin at Chicks Hotel, Trophies offers a dichotomy of anchored, unerring machine rhythm by bassist Oscar Johns and drummer Hamish Morgan that unifies the layered, Kevin Shields-style vocals of Semisi Maiai. The shrouded reverb from guitarist Tim McNaughton paints the song to sound similar to The Stone Roses, modernised by the special ingredient that is the collective of Marlin’s Dreaming.
With the inspirations from bands of the same vast indie tapestry like Chastity Belt, Alex G, and Pavement, quartet of close friends Marlin’s Dreaming bring forth their own unique version of sounds from their south-eastern coastal home of Ōtepoti (Dunedin) on a domestic and international scale.
Nothing, including the pandemic, has been able to halt this musical extravaganza that began in 2017 with first album Lizard Tears.
Marlin’s Dreaming interjected with their second album Quotidian in early 2020, inspiring acclaim from the likes of Kirin J Callinan and The Chills while progressively popping into more and more on high-rotation Spotify playlists.
The third studio album Hasten, mixed by Tom Bell and mastered by Heba Kadry, is set to bless our lives on October 1st, just in time for lockdown restrictions to be gradually easing in Sydney. Fingers crossed we can freely enjoy and boogie to this album, or freely melt into the hills listening to this goodness.
If you are in New Zealand, please go to a Marlin’s Dreaming gig on our behalf. The total hunka-spunks will be playing at venues in Auckland and Wellington like the Power Station and Lacuna & Loons in November.
To check out other gigs of the Hasten release tour and to buy tickets, wander over here.
Hasten is out October 1st.
