Another Sky Releases 'Was I Unkind?' From New EP 'Music For Winter Vol. 1'

On the first day of 2021, Another Sky will release their latest body of work, an EP entitled Music For Winter Vol. I. The EP follows their debut full-length I Slept on The Floor, released earlier this year via Fiction / Missing Piece Records. Today, the band released the EP's third single "Was I Unkind?", following the recently released "It Keeps Coming" and "Sun Seeker". Alongside the studio version of "Was I Unkind?," the London-based four piece have also released two very special live performance videos, recorded with London Contemporary Voices at London's Union Chapel in 2019. The first being a live version of "Was I Unkind?," and the second a medley of "Was I Unkind?," "Tree," and "Avalanche."

"We wanted to release a song to celebrate Winter Solstice, a significant time of year in many cultures," Catrin Vincent, vocalist and lyricist of Another Sky says of the new single. "'Was I Unkind?' was written about the time I accidentally killed my favourite plant. The plant became symbolic of how I treated myself. I realised I was as trapped in the world as the plant was, at the mercy of myself. Winter Solstice is a time of death and rebirth."

"Winter is the perfect time for sombre music," she continues. On how the project came together, Catrin explains, "some songs are old, some are new, all are entirely collaborative. After being kept apart because of the lockdown and writing a bunch of our second album separately, we just wanted to get back into our studio and record." The entire EP was recorded, produced and mixed by the band themselves at their South London studio, The Lighthouse, in October 2020.

"Where do we find our portable paradises?" - Catrin found herself staring at this very poem by Roger Robinson on the London Underground in March 2020.

For the first time in six years, the band couldn't see each other, and the band's bassist Naomi was able to sit still long enough to confront her intense fear of going to hell for being in a same-sex relationship, due to a Christian upbringing.

Catrin explains, "after lockdown eased, myself and Naomi revisited the opening track 'Pieces', an old track originally sung by Naomi. We wrote lyrics together from an imagined conversation with a loved one telling Naomi she was going to hell."

Naomi's journey became the lyrical foundation for each of these six songs as Catrin drew universal comparisons with others' lives; "a struggle with identity, walking past churches you are no longer part of and the person you become when you are in pain. If there is no end in sight of struggle, where are our white sands, green hills and fresh fish? If we can't ever truly escape, which is what we were exploring in our debut album I Slept On The Floor, can we carry paradise in ourselves?"

Naomi adds about her experience, "It's so easy to push things to the back of your mind. You never really know the impact this has on you until it becomes overbearing, and you're forced to address it. I found it incredibly cathartic to tackle these issues head-on by visualising certain situations and being able to say whatever I needed to say, both in therapy and in writing music".

The band are currently recording their second full-length album which is anticipated to drop in 2021. Music For Winter Volume. II is also set to be released winter 2021.

Another Sky's debut album I Slept On The Floor proved to the world just how vital the words of lyricist and vocalist Catrin Vincent truly are. Her poetic rage has been titular in Another Sky's story, grappling with the topics of toxic relationships, childhood trauma, systematic elitism, Brexit Britain, the rise of Donald Trump and much more. Juxtaposed against the horizon reaching sound of guitarist Jack Gilbert, bassist Naomi Le Dune and drummer Max Doohan, Another Sky sound like nothing and nobody else.

Photo Credit: Ella Brolly

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