Cape Town based songwriter ROBIN AULD has just released his new solo album, The Everlovin’ Wind. It’s his first album since 2014’s Back of the line.
Released via Shoreline Songs, The Everlovin’ Wind has a bunch of musical influences he says: “country surf rock, up-tempo rock pop, maskandi and blues.”
“I produced it in Kalk Bay over five months over the Cape winter. Some of the songs are recent, some 15 years old or older. I’ve been playing I’m sorry for 25 years or so.
With the assistance of the SAMRO MCSF initiative and Shoreline Songs, it was tracked with the musicians for each song that I had heard in my head for years, and also have wonderful contributions from incoming musicians like Mark Fransman, Rikku Latti, Andy Lund, Dan Shout and Rayelle Goodman.”
“I’d like to say that the album was super easy and it all just rolled. But the truth is, most of the songs had to be wrestled to the ground like rhinos!”
“The textures and arrangements I had in my head took time. Normally you’d have an engineer and/or a producer saying ‘yeah not sure about that’, helping you at the myriad forks in the road that you come to on every production decision. As this was mainly a solitary exercise, I was glad to have the advice of friends whose advice I trusted… such as Arno Carstens, who I can thank for the handclaps on Underground.”
“I didn’t have to worry much about the rhythm section. On drums was Paul Tizzard, Kevin Gibson and Jonno Sweetman, with bass duties shared between Schalk Joubert and Roger Bashew. We tracked the drums and bass in our front room, with another session out in Somerset West at Schalk Joubert’s house. Further instrumental and vocal tracking went down in Kalk Bay, along with backing vocal sessions featuring Wendy Oldfield, Nhoza Sitsholwana, Tonia Moller and Fancy Galada.”
“Stylistically, apart from my usual territory of roots influences, I paid homage to some my longest influences on some songs. I’m sorry is a LA noir type instrumental which I would have liked to see in an LA gumshoe detective movie.”
“My admiration for Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan is also evident on songs such as Landscape Girl and Bays of Blue, and guitar is featured a fair amount throughout the album.”
Robin comments that lyrically the themes are also varied: “Weaverbird is a story of the gnarly old surf dudes who shaped boards in garages and lived in kombis, drifting up and down the coast. They also used to look after us ‘lighties’ in the days when surfing was still an underground activity and no-one was making money from it.”
The first single, Underground, is about old friendships, and how being anti-establishment eventually turns into its own orthodoxy.
Zambia, while with a geographical location, is about family disintegration. More than a country mile is about how, even in long standing relationships, we can still elude each other and remain a mystery.
“All about a boy is about the silly things people can fall out over, Lines of fun is also a nostalgic surf theme, and Sunny Skies I wrote shortly after James Phillips died.”
Mastered by Tim Lengfeld , the album is available on all streaming services and Bandcamp for downloads.
Listen to the album here.
Who: Robin Auld
Album: The Everlovin’ Wind 2022
Info: www.facebook.com/robinauldmusic www.robinauld.com or instagram.com/robinauldmusic
WS
