Alberta Cross Release New Single ‘Morning Drum’ Ahead Of The Release Of New Album ‘Sinking Ships’ On March 31st
Ahead of the release of new album ‘Sinking Ships’ on 31st March, Alberta Cross release new single ‘Morning Drum’ - listen HERE.
On the single, Swedish-born lead singer and guitarist Petter Ericson Stakee comments: “‘Morning Drum’ came out of a long dark grey winter when I lived in Berlin. 6 months with a huge grey lid on top of you. It’s tough not to be affected by it. I love Berlin so much but the contrast between the cold and very grey winter and the lovely lush summer is immense. Petter continues: “It was also inspired by me touring the eastern parts of Europe for the first time, seeing the Baltic countries for the first time was mind opening to me. Such incredible places but sometimes shadowed by its dark underlying history”.
‘Sinking Ships’ was written mostly at the legendary The Wool Hall in Frome Somerset with Petter’s long term producer and collaborator, Luke Potashnick - Luke recently bought and renovated The Wool Hall (legendary in part due to Van Morrisson and Tears for Fears recording albums there). Luke comments on the single: “Petter brought this idea in after his time either living in or touring parts of Europe. For the recording we were chasing dark tones and elements that droned... a super disciplined and regimented drum groove set against ideas of things breaking and soaring in the landscape... like they’re daring to go against the grain”.
The album, which will be Alberta Cross’ seventh, has definitely taken longer than was first expected, Petter comments: “After everything the world has seen these past two years, the album took longer than we expected to record and release...the writing side of it actually came together quite quickly. But now that it is finally coming out, the timing actually feels serendipitous - the themes and lyrics of these songs do in fact reflect what’s going on in the world today. Even though I wrote some of these tunes a while ago they strangely feel more relevant today than they did back then”.
Luke comments: “I adore the feeling of this record - when writing together, Petter and I always end up somewhere on the same page - maybe it's the Scandinavian in us, maybe it's the life-stage we both share. I am particularly fond of ‘Mercy’ and ‘Sinking Ships’. A lot of the landscape of these songs were set up back in a basement in Sweden...the main reason I single out these two songs is in how Petter's voice soars on these recordings. I feel they are truly unique to Petter’s way of singing and I’m always very excited when we manage to capture that’
He continues: “The cover of Sharon Van Etten’s song is also a really special moment on the record for me. I never know how I truly feel about covers on a record of otherwise original songs...But this song is just so good and again I’m really proud of this version”.
Since forming in 2005 - Alberta Cross have toured with Mumford & Sons, Portugal. The Man, Neil Young, Them Crooked Vultures (David Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones) and Rag N’ Bone Man to name a few, performed on TV around the world including The Late Show with David Letterman and Last Call with Carson Daly, had tracks featured in multiple US hit TV series (Million Little Pieces, Sons of Anarchy, Californication) and released six previous albums. Now back in the UK, Petter will be promoting the new album in the UK and across Europe throughout 2023, with US dates to come.
‘Morning Drum’ is out now through Dark Matter / AMK distributed through Kartel Music Group, listen HERE
