One of the best things about a musically incestuous city like Melbourne is the number of collaborations that join forces as a result. Rather than scrap backstage over who gets to headline, Melbournians will simply form another band – a polygamous concept that’s particularly beneficial for musicians whose mood takes them across multiple genres. And so here we have Kinder, constructed in 2014 from present and past members of five bands and counting, including Dirt Farmer, The Frowning Clouds and The Messengers.
Dorigo Rise is an assured debut from Kinder; never hurried, refreshingly eclectic and strewn with introspective pop hooks, it’s an immersive listen derived from the soul.
The four-piece’s debut LP, Dorigo Rise, which lands mid-November, was a pretty organic, natural process, both in terms of penning and recording. It was spearheaded first by leading track Fall Back Down – a surfy, mellowed out slacker pop track full of impromptu woes; next by the more upbeat Black and White Burning, which hooks on the theme of persistence and the reassurance that everything is going to be okay.
The album’s moniker is a nod to the bush farmhouse belonging to drummer Thomas Barlow’s aunt in which the tracks came into existence. It took just three long weekends spent holed up out there, with each session overseen by a different engineer. But rather than suffer from ‘too many engineers’ syndrome, the impact is refreshingly eclectic, rather than creating discord.
And as for the lengthy lapse between each session, this merely demonstrates that we don’t get enough long weekends. The resulting 11 tracks, mixed by Mikey Young, set upbeat surf rock ambience alongside tunes of a more introspective dreamy pop nature, which are ushered along by gentle pads of percussion.
The summer-strewn mood set by earlier released singles assure the mood throughout the entire album. With I Had You, oozes hypnotic vibes, laced with ambling guitar melodies, amass with reverb and Ben Maton’s haunting vocals. Never Settled is the perfect hazy beach soundtrack, and is full of jangly guitar and sweet laid-back lyrical declarations of affection. Misty balances somewhere in between – big guitar sounds, warm and absorbing, that are suddenly stripped right back.
Kinder have said that the creation of Dorigo Rise was a real heart and soul effort, and that’s certainly reflected in much of their lyrics, which frequently explore variants of love, whether that’s yearning, nostalgia, contentment, anguish or anything in between. Stefo in particular is full of addictive hooks, with some great vocals squirreled in there, such as, “You keep me awake, even in my dreams.” And with feels like these, it’s pretty simple to unearth a kinship, knowing we’re all united in our love for summer.
Dorigo Rise is available to download from 11 November.