GILMORE TRAIL ANNOUNCE FIRST ALBUM IN OVER SIX YEARS: ‘IMPERMANENCE’

OUT 21 JANUARY 2022, VIA CHASMATA RECORDS

LISTEN TO GRIPPING TEASER NOW HERE

“sweeping, impossibly grand instrumental statements; soundscapes that aim to capture the awe, the sheer beauty of nature.”
CLASH

Breaking the six year silence – GILMORE TRAIL – are pleased to confirm their return to music with a brand new album.

‘Impermanence’, the long-awaited follow up to 2015’s ‘The Floating World’, will be released via the band’s own Chasmata Records imprint on 21st January 2022.

Offering fans an exclusive teaser today, it stands as an enigmatic and enveloping re-introduction to the world of Gilmore Trail and a tantalising promise of an all new chapter in the writing.

LISTEN TO THE TEASER HERE

Sheffield’s premier instrumental rock band, Gilmore Trail, are David Ivall and Danny Mills on guitars, Joe Richards on bass and Bob Brown on drums. Named after a passage in Alaska – a route recommended for best experiencing the Northern Lights; their compositions have a reputation for the atmospheric and transcendent, with their latest work ready to continue the blazing trail set out by their former work.

Arriving 10 years into their career, ‘Impermanence‘ will complete a trilogy of full-length studio releases for Gilmore Trail. True to form, it’s a record that finds them building upon the foundations of their previous work while broadening their horizons in the spirit of transformation and new possibilities.

Having amicably parted-ways with drummer Sam Ainger right at the beginning of the recording process, it would be the recruitment of his replacement Bob Brown that would also set the trajectory and tone for the new album. A record ultimately about change, transition and uncertainty, the seven tracks of ‘Impermanence’ each offer their own response to these underlying core themes. Officially completed in 2020 before the pandemic was even a twinkle in the world’s eye, ‘Impermanence’ would come to take on an eerie new resonance in the months that ensued as its theoretical concepts became hard truths for just about everyone.

Letting the ebb and flow of their majestic instrumentals say more than lyrics ever could, the songs of ‘Impermanence’ build sonic cathedrals from cerebral seedlings. From personal reflections of a legacy in near collapse (“Ruins”) and brooding ruminations on devastating family losses to dementia (“Distant Reflection”), ‘Impermanence’ also sees a band looking to areas of exception, change and abnormality in the natural world too. The pensive “Zone of Silence” pays reference to an abandoned area of Mexico steeped in legends of magnetic anomalies and wildlife mutation, whereas album centre-piece “Echoes of Solitude” takes inspiration from the lonely whale – a creature whose calls resonate at a different frequency to the rest of its species – with the band masterfully capturing the immense beauty and the crushing seclusion of its life at sea to music. Stunted instrumentals such as “Convalescence” and “Nocturne” offer moments of healing and respite amidst the album’s more elongated opuses (five of the album’s seven tracks steer boldly beyond the 8-minute mark) and are illustrative of a band in complete awareness of their art and audience. Embodying everything the record represents, philosophically, personally and musically, is the towering title-track and closer: “Impermanence”. As the band explain:

““Impermanence” is our summation not only of the album’s central theme, but of life itself. From innocent beginnings, we navigate through multiple changes in our lives before reaching an inevitable conclusion – we believe that it is what we do in such moments of change that come to define us.”

Sailing with the winds of change, ‘Impermanence’ is the Trail’s first record to feature an array of official guest appearances as the band sought to establish a more artistic palette of sound. Increasingly inspired by the pioneering spaces explored in the realms of jazz and progressive rock especially, Gilmore Trail called upon the talents of Sally Blyth (a sound practitioner who provides the mesmeric singing bowls signatures to the 10-minute epic “Distant Reflection”) along with Martin Archer (the owner of Discus Music, who gifts the breathtaking “Echoes of Solitude” with its haunting saxophone undulations) to help realise their vision.

With all music written and performed by Gilmore Trail, the album was recorded by Danny Mills at Chasmata Studios (Sheffield) in 2019. Mixed by Mills with Joe Richards, it was given its final mastering by Lawrence Mackrory at Obey Mastering (Sweden) the following year. Joe Richards provided initial field recordings of the tracks “Echoes of Solitude” and “Nocturne”.

A record that finds a band uncompromisingly true to their natural identity, yet embracing change for all the goodness it can bring, ‘Impermanence’ is the sound of Gilmore Trail in evolution and taking flight.

Available digitally on all streaming platforms and physically, the 12” of ‘Impermanence’ will also arrive with a vinyl-only bonus track: “Origins/Oceans” (Live).

For the last decade, Gilmore Trail have been making music both unassumingly epic and simmeringly cinematic. Harnessing elements of post-rock to space-rock, alternative to the progressive the band have gleaned inspiration from the catalogues of Oceansize, This Will Destroy You, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Mogwai, Intronaut Buckethead and beyond, yet with a resultant sound theirs alone. Making their mark with their 2013 debut ‘Sailing Stones’, the band have charted a course of their choosing and a pace of their own definition. With two albums, an EP, plus a reworking of themes from the TV show Twin Peaks to date, the band have earned something of a cult following, while also receiving praise from mainstream media including Clash, Rocksound, Prog Magazine, Now Then, plus spins on the likes of BBC 6Music and BBC Introducing. A formidable live prospect, the Trail have delivered captivating performances at the likes of ArcTanGent Festival (2017) and Tramlines Festival, taken in two UK headline tours, and even three weddings.