After spending the last few months delighting us with an array of light and breezy indie-rock offerings, Australian outfit Grids & Dots recently returned to unveil their shimmering new EP ‘What Happens To Friendships?’.
Looking to cement their output over the last year, this new seven-track collection makes for a wonderfully bold and vivid addition to their repertoire. With its bright and shimmering aesthetic, coupled with their own diverse range of influences, ‘What Happens To Friendships?’ makes for a wonderfully uplifting listen from start to finish.
So with the new EP available to stream now, we joined them for a chat to discuss the new material and what they have in store on the horizon.
Words by Chris Bound
Discovered via http://musosoup.com
Chris) Hi guys, how are you today?
G&D) Good thanks! It’s a bit chilly here in Sydney in the mornings by our standards right now as autumn sets in, but quite bright and lovely.
For those that haven’t heard of you yet, how would you best describe your sound and who have been your biggest influences so far?
I would describe us as a noisy dream pop / shoegaze-influenced band with heartfelt lyrics on sleeves. Some of our original influences are said guitar and synth bands from the late 80s era like MBV or Slowdive, The Underground Lovers, but I think all four of us come from different and quite eccentric musical backgrounds and we all come together to cook up something quite original.
As far as current bands, we’re loving projects like Small Black, Land of Talk, Ruby Haunt, John Hopkins, Mere Women (from Sydney) Olafur Arnaulds.. Yuck was always a band I think we really liked at the time as well.
You have just released your new EP ‘What Happens To Friendships?’ Can you tell us how that release came about? Is there a story behind it?
We had a handful of songs that we had been writing together pretty much from the inception of the band, which we tried to record once before before falling out with our producer and leaving those recordings behind aside from our debut single in 2019.
We then approached well-known producer Wayne Connolly who we had always wanted to work with, and we finally got the songs down with a couple of new ones we’d just written added on as well. That’s why the EP has so many songs on it, almost album length!
We had only just started recording when the world turned upside down and COVID hit, so the process was slow and careful and we pretty much just snuck into the studio whenever we were allowed to throughout the year. Looking back, it allowed us space to give the songs room to breathe and think about what we were recording before we actually did it.
How would you say it compares to your previous releases?
We only had one single out beforehand, called ‘Never Change’. As far as production quality, Wayne took a much more organic approach to the songs, trying to get as much of the live performance and rhythm section in there as possible, as opposed to how we recorded the original single, which relied heavily on electronic beats and a wash of synths. Both approaches are legit today, but the new EP definitely has helped to define who we are as a band a bit more. I think we also grew as songwriters in the process, which helped flesh out all the songs as they changed as we recorded them.
And what song on the collection do you feel closest to?
It’s probably different for every member, but mine (Daniel) is Dishes & Days because I love playing it live. It’s melodic and almost pop but has those intertwining guitars which blow up ¾ of the way through the song. The Great Divide is special because it came together at the very last moment before we hit record, but I think Carmen’s fave song to play is ‘Someone mentioned today..’ which has a life of its own when we play it live, and it’s ending turns into a chaotic partial improv noise piece.
The coronavirus outbreak has obviously affected everyone’s plans, but what have you got in store for the rest of the year?
We just went into the studio to start recording our second EP! The new one will have another 4-5 newly written songs and we’ll be releasing it late in the year. So far we are really happy with how it’s sounding. We’re actually taking a short break from playing live now, and then getting back into the swing of gigging and promoting and writing new material eventually.
And finally, what single sentence would you say best describes your new EP?
Heartsick lyrics wrapped in sweet melodies and detuned, reverb-drenched guitars.