North Atlantic Oscillation Album Out Monday!

After a busy and exciting 2009, releasing their debut EP and playing shows with the likes of Porcupine Tree, Explosions in the Sky and Cymbals Eat Guitars, North Atlantic Oscillation announce the release of their debut album, ‘Grappling Hooks’.
 
Out on March 22nd through Kscope, ‘Grappling Hooks’ is a subtle yet powerful kaleidoscope of purring electronics, atmospheric layers and hook-laden melodies. Preceded by single ‘Drawing Maps from Memory’, out on March 8th, the Scottish trio prove that the praise that was heaped upon ‘Callsigns EP’, released in November, was entirely justified.
 
Throughout these reviews, and since the band’s inception, people have struggled to find the perfect way to describe the sound of North Atlantic Oscillation.
 
If Brian Wilson could operate a laptop...or Pink Floyd were young and skint in 2010……or Wayne Coyne was Scottish….or Grandaddy came from a land of drizzle…or Sigur Ros cracked a smile from time to time…or…we could go on.
 
‘Colourful’, ‘crepuscular’ and ‘expansive’ are three epithets that spring to mind, but even they don’t quite do this Edinburgh-based three-piece’s sound justice. Perhaps you should just trust your own ears and join us as we cut to the back story…to Edinburgh in 2005.
 
It was here that Sam met Ben and the pair bonded over a love of unusual time signatures, jazz, Tom Waits, Squarepusher, post rock outfits such as Godspeed You Black Emperor and a thousand other disparate sounds besides. At this point they were strangers still sounding each other out. Originally from the Midlands, Ben gravitated to Edinburgh as a student, while Sam had played in a variety of bands and spent time in Dublin and the US. When it soon became apparent that they were kindred spirits, a band was born. A two-piece band – but a band all the same.
 
Sam sang the songs, played guitar, bass, keyboards and even the occasionally saxophone on them, while Ben was the drummer who was also happened to be a dab hand at programming. Bill would join them later on bass.
 
Choosing the name North Atlantic Oscillation, the duo spent 6 months rehearsing before debuting live with a set of songs that have long since gone. Because North Atlantic Oscillation are an ever-evolving entity, mad studio scientists who prefer to conduct their sound experiments on stages, as opposed to the thousands of bedroom-bound boffins across the land. NAO got out there, playing with Explosions In The Sky, Everything Everything, Stardeath And White Dwarfs and many others
 
Incidentally, the name North Atlantic Oscillation refers to the climactic phenomenon caused by fluctuations in the atmospheric pressure between the Icelandic low and Azores high; a clash of hot and cold, basically. It seems a perfect moniker for a band of such contrasts – the contrast of melding timeless rock moves with sequencing and the latest laptop technology (the band pride themselves on creating every single sample themselves), the contrast of citing Blur, Chick Corea and Orbital as influences, the contrast of dark foreboding tones and blissed-out serotonin-fuelled pastoral sweeps.
 
North Atlantic Oscillation’s big break came in a manner that we have all read about, but rarely actually happens – they got signed after cold-calling record companies via e-mail. That’s the simple version of the story, anyway. The longer version goes something like this: aware that no band should wait for the world to come to them, Sam elected to finance and record NAO’s debut album Grappling Hooks himself. This he did, recording it in Glasgow and flying over to a studio in Dublin every two weeks to mix it.

Armed with a complete album they then put it out there and received eight offers from record labels. “We went cold-calling,” recalls Sam. “We contacted dozens of people unsolicited, went through a quiet period and then the offers started coming in. And, amazingly, it worked.” The band elected to sign to KScope (Anathema, Porcupine Tree, Engineers), and released an introductory EP ‘Callsigns’ late last year, featuring album tracks, a remix by label-mates Engineers and an ethereal cover version of  classic doo-wop song, ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, first made famous in the 1959 by The Flamingos.
 
Now, we present their debut album. It sounds nothing like you expect it to. But then that’s exactly what makes North Atlantic Oscillation so beguiling, intriguing and fascinating – there’s a surprise around every corner

NAO are: Sam Healy - vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, programming | Ben Martin - drums, synths, programming | Bill Walsh - bass, vocals
 
See North Atlantic Oscillation live:
 
March

22nd London Lexington (album launch presented by Sonic Cathedral)
23rd Bristol Louisiana
24th Manchester Ruby Lounge
25th Leeds Cockpit
26th Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s
27th Glasgow Captains Rest

www.myspace.com/naoband