Sydney-based five-piece Pastures are an indie-rock band reknowned for their jangly guitars and warm sounds that tug on the heartstrings. True to form, their latest single about to drop, “The Garden”, does just that, and we are delighted to be premiering it ahead of its release on Tuesday.
The track follows on from “Sweet Desires” which was released earlier in the year. The emotive vocals, with swelling harmonies take the listener on a trip. The song gives strong visuals, with the song’s title lending itself to hazy rays streaming through the foliage overhead. There are some lovely guitars on “The Garden” and it’s beautifully textured and nuanced. It’s one of those tracks that on each subsequent play, you discover another hidden gem.
Songwrite Dylan Bender of the band writes about “The Garden” – “This is the track that best captures that feeling of bittersweetness that is pretty common in our music – finding yourself between the joys, uncertainties, and sorrows in life and feeling somewhat bewildered as to how these sensations coexist so closely. I wrote the lyrics when I was 19 without being too sure of what exactly they meant at the time. All they could convey for me was some kind of feeling I couldn’t quite articulate.
Over time, I came to realise that is precisely what the song is about – a young man trying to make sense of the world he was growing into. I sat on this song for years before showing the guys, it just wasn’t quite right. Then one day I demoed it out and added a few touches that brought it to life before sending it off to the guys. I’m so glad I did, because with the contribution of my wonderful bandmates and Oscar Saran, the final product is something we are all really proud of”
The track was recorded with co-producer and engineer, Oscar Saran (Coconut Cream) at his home studio in Sydney. Dylan writes about the recording process “… Oscar really took a shine to this song, which was really nice, so we spent a fair bit of time experimenting with textures and tones to bring the song to life a bit. Tom [Pollock] has such a magic touch for a catchy indie guitar lead and I think that talent of his really shines on this track. Watching him lay down the lead parts was a joy.”
Drummer, Sam Cimenti gives us his take on what makes the track so special: “As the garden is one of our tracks where for the drums, less is more, it was an exciting project to really step back and focus the theme of the beat towards enhancing the emotion crafted by the harmonic elements, and really aid the transition from section to section in this lovely narrative. There isn’t really a repeating section of the drums throughout which I feel really allows the guitars, keys, vocals and bass to shine and lead whilst adding a necessary element of variation and movement. It’s a track that really plucks at the heartstrings, and all of the individualities we all bring to our instruments combine superbly”
Do enjoy this exclusive first listen, ahead of its release tomorrow.
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Photo Credit: Abbey Haberecht
