Leeds-based band Invisible Cities are releasing their forthcoming album Rarities on 24th March on Messrs Kick & Drum. The twist is that, as well as being the band’s debut album, it’s also their final album, as the various members have decided to call it a day after eight years together in the band. Jeff T. Smith of Living Body has co-produced the record alongside Lee Smith.
The band’s viola player Jenna Isherwood, who is now also a member of Living Body, honestly spoke about the dissolution of the band: “‘Pig’ was the last song we ever played live, at our final gig back in May 2015, by which time Jeff (of Living Body) was standing in on drums. That we are only just coming to release an album after 8 years together is very much typical of Invisible Cities’ general approach to music-making and all the associated stuff that constitutes ‘Being a Band’. But, the fact that we applied ourselves thinly to these tasks at times doesn’t mean we didn’t care.”
She continued: “By the end, and for most of our time really, it was clear that we weren’t going to ‘go anywhere’ with the band. We didn’t really want to (George at one point seemed to consider simply playing gigs to constitute “showing off”). But it was sad to see the end of a time where, collectively, we could act as though being in a band was important. A thing to arrange your life around. In many ways ours is a very typical story, but it meant something to us, so it felt important to make a record of it.”
Despite being waylaid by other projects and the trials and tribulations of life in general, ‘Pig’ still sounds like the project of a band who were committed to making interesting, thought-provoking music. It moves in waves between slow, complex rhythms and slightly more noisy passages, combining elements of math rock with folky strings. Listen to ‘Pig’ below.
