Panzer Queen

We started the journey so long ago and finally, it’s arrived. Our second EP. We hope you enjoy.

As Sydney based post-rockers PANZER QUEEN prepare to release their second EP in 2011, they foreshadow its release with the delivery of the first single: the six-minute epic ‘INTO THE GOLDEN OCEAN.’ The single is drawn from the forthcoming EP “When All Our Fathers Worshipped Stock and Stone,” following on from 2009’s ‘Hunting the White Stag’ EP, produced by Mark Myers of The Middle East, which first brought the band to the attention of the indie rock scene. With their second EP, the band has expressed wider ambitions: “While the genre ‘post-rock’ remains inaccessible to most people, our music is meant to be broadly listened to and appreciated,” guitarist Liam Bray said. “I’d probably best describe it as classical music driven by guitars.”‘Into The Golden Ocean’ delivers on all the hallmarks of great instrumental rock, with an unconventional arrangement that has drawn obvious comparisons to post-rock greats Explosions in the Sky and less obviously, to European legends Marillion. Mastering with Alan Douches (Foals, Mastodon) adds weight to the colourful array of textures used. With their second EP awaiting final touches before its release late this year, Panzer Queen is progressing towards a new soundscape. Chris Crisci (The Appleseed Cast) was recruited to mix the record, continuing an association that began with the band’s first EP. A synthesis of delicate melodies and ambient builds and falls, their debut remains a good reflection of the group’s instrumentation, but their second effort saw Crisci collaboratively developing the band’s sound into unexplored territory. “There was a huge creative input and creative licence from Chris on the record” Bray said. “The post production on our second EP really brought the finer details to our songs.” Formed in 2008, the band’s tight dynamics and wonderfully written melodic structures have seen them garner a large following in Sydney and surrounds. The band have graced the stages of some of Sydney’s most famous venues including the Gaelic Theatre, Annandale Hotel and a sold-out Excelsior Hotel, sharing stages with the likes of sleepmakeswaves, Meniscus, Anubis and beaufields.‘Into The Golden Ocean’ will be supported by a series of live appearances following the EP’s release in late 2011 through Bird’s Robe Records. “Panzer Queen have quickly stamped themselves as a tight and melodic take on the post-rock genre.The group display their intent to place themselves firmly amongst the front runners of the Australian post scene” – Krystal Brinkley, Music Feeds “Post-rocker royalty… when you mix soaring chord progressions, roaring synth-guitar riffs and a motley grouping of local musicians, you have Panzer Queen.” – Robert Kennard, Northern District Times

INTO THE GOLDEN OCEAN can be downloaded free from Bird’s Robe Records
www.birdsrobe.bandcamp.com or www.birdsrobe.com
Web: www.myspace.com/panzerqueen / www.facebook.com/birdsrobe

“When All Our Fathers Worshipped Stock and Stone”. It might seem an ambitious outing, but for us what lies before you has had it’s origins in something very natural. Between this and our last effort, “Hunting the White Stag” we have gained many things, among them a keyboardist. That, coupled with changing listening habits and growing imaginations, has resulted in something we are very proud of, something that has for us been a long time coming. We have been playing some of the songs that ended up on this record for well over a year now, and they all came together differently. Some had their genesis in friend’s parents’ lounge rooms, others were changed dozens of times, and refined right up until the point of being recorded, while some found their beginnings in a spontaneous jam we’d do while rehearsing for a show.

We lost a drummer in a long time friend and collaborator through many bands, and gained a new one right in the middle of the recording process. We recorded the whole EP two times before we achieved the sound that we all had in our heads, deciding to redo the whole thing literally weeks before Liam and I went to America to mix it with a musical hero of all of ours: Chris Crisci of the massively underappreciated band The Appleseed Cast.

Listening to these songs reminds me at times of the places we were when we were working on them the Surry Hills area in Sydney where many found their first form through numerous shows in small venues; the churches we rehearsed in and the hot, sweltering Midwest state of Kansas where it was all finally mixed. I still can recall the exact places where some of the songs gained the seminal musical passages that heralded an end to the sometimes frustrating process of “getting them right” – Liam’s lounge room where we first fleshed out what would later become “Flight From the White Shores”; I can look back on the first time the song naturally crescendoed in Liam’s lounge room as one of, if not my happiest musical memories – the time when we figured out the last section for “Into the Golden Ocean” when we finally had it and turned off all the lights but one in the big church where we rehearsed and just played the part over and over. Some of my favourite pieces came together literally in a one hour session; “Ruby your eyes are…” was written in the Christmas of 2009 right before Stephen said “I don’t think we’ll come up with anything good tonight, the vibe just isn’t there,” and the song just spontaneously wrote itself with all parts finished before he left to go Christmas shopping later that night.

Our listening has definitely changed and I think that’s reflected in the music; there’s a slower, more content pace in many of the pieces and a striking sadness in others. Such emotion I often find not in rock music but in composers like Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki. Our attention to timbre and tone has increased with the help of more gear tailored to achieve the exact sounds we’re looking for and instruction from the masters Brian Eno, Aphex Twin and Jónsi & Alex. As a result there are many more points in the music where there is space, showing pieces that aren’t afraid to linger when it means exploring the often magical results of combined reverb from different instruments and from notes that have long since been played. I’d say that this record embodies our combined vision for a new direction and sound, what I’ve come to realise after finishing it is that it’s a result of us bringing our imaginiations into reality and only beginning to explore the connection between the two. There is only one thing that really unites these songs in my mind they all came from us just playing in a room together often without speaking about what was happening, and listening back to it. There’s no other way I’d rather have it.

Arvo Pärt: “You can kill people with sound.”

-Tim, Panzer Queen