The Dawn Collective

Does anyone else feel that there is some kind of cosmic coincidence that their favourite tracks on some of their favourite albums tend to be 3, 6 or 9? Some people have that slow burning track 7 that becomes the highlight. For many, all they need is track 1 and 2 and they have had their fix. On a subconscious level, there must be a natural energy drawing bands to track their albums the way they do. The High Fidelity generation will swear that there is only one way to arrange the track list, and for those who are ‘background’ listeners- track lists are obsolete.

I have a new favourite album and my favourite tracks are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10! BEHOLD! Our debut album Save A Place For Us will hit stores on Saturday the 20th of September (tomorrow!) and you are now able to have a sneaky preview of the track list ahead of time. Oooooh, don’t you feel special!

Save A Place For Us – The Dawn Collective

1. All Those Pigs And Enemies
2. A Russian Trilogy
3. Ghosts Shod In Steel Shoes
4. Eat, Drink, For Tomorrow We Die
5. A Handful Of Moments
6. Numbers Are The New Alphabet
7. Stop This Worry
8. Shadow Friend
9. The Art Of Longevity
10. Hold Your Breath

It has taken some time to gather these songs together and think about them in the context of an album for release. The way you perform songs live can be very different to the way they communicate through people’s stereos, so we wanted to take the time to really work through this, but not weigh ourselves down with over analysis. What we needed was a simple and effective way to tell a good couple of stories.

When we started tracking the album over a year ago, we all felt that All Those Pigs And Enemies would be a great opener. The ambience which stirs into the growing intensity felt perfect to use as an introduction to our sound. The lyrics seemed to start an unsettled story that would float and swoop through the rest of the album. Great! Track 1 was locked in. Where to next? Well, this was the hard part…

As individual musicians and contributors, we have all grown to love each song for different reasons, so the natural flow of the album was quite a task. In the same way we were happy with the position of track 1, we felt that the song The Art Of Longevity - the climactic coda of our live sets - would be a great way to bring the album to a close. In the end, we felt the humble Hold Your Breath would be the perfect acoustic sign off.

The bulk of the album changed quite a bit and after playing way too much switcharoo, we contacted one of the album’s producers, Tim Whitten, to give us his unbiased and educated opinion. It was strange hearing an outsider’s ideas on the flow of the band’s material. In a way, I felt like I was finally listening to the album with fresh ears, receiving my first pang of excitement! The curse of being in a band and writing the music you love, is that you often see too much of the process to feel the magic of a first listening. Honestly, the fresh track listing got me pretty close to the magic and it felt natural to lock it in.

So, here we are - a day before it’s finally released. We all feel very happy and we hope you will be happy too! Dynamically, there is a lot to digest. For those who like to whack on headphones in the quiet of their rooms trying to hear the recording space and its natural quirks - you will find this recording a treat. There are lots of awkwardly beautiful quirks hidden throughout the frequencies. You will learn a lot about us too! For example: one of us can tap dance; we like to mic up badminton games; we like to yell and smash metal drums with thongs and bricks; and we can create quite the make shift kitchen percussion section.

Thank you all for your support over the years, we sincerely hope you enjoy this album and we will see you soon!