Tale Of Two Seasons

Massachusetts instrumental rockers Caspian are heading Down Under for the very first time, roughly ten years since they began gigging around their oceanside hometown of Beverly. Band lynchpin Philip Jamieson admits that he has problems putting his joy into words regarding this maiden voyage, but says the situation is something he never expected.

“In the back of our minds we always hoped that we would reach as many people as possible, but I don't necessarily know if we thought it would reach as far as it has,” he smiles. “It continues to be a huge honour and a privilege to do this, and to bring [our music] to people who haven't heard it, who are literally on the other side of planet earth. We really want to give [Australia] ten years of music in 70 minutes, if that's possible. We're going to present the suite that's for sure; we've got the arsenal ready.”

Long established throughout North America and Europe as a post-rock force, the five-piece have gradually extended their three-guitar sonic attack to incorporate more mood into their soundscapes. This was brought to life no clearer than on 2012's Waking Season, an album – recorded with celebrated post-rock player and producer Matt Bayles – which terrified Jamieson in its infancy. “We stretched the songs out so much and we got a little less proggy; things got a little lighter and ethereal and ambient, and we tried to incorporate textures beyond just the guitars. Pulling ourselves away from that was a little frightening at first but it was something that we ended up being proud of.”

In the 18 months since its initial reveal, the success and reach of the record has all but exceeded Caspian's expectations in terms of the way their fans have received it. This has pushed Aussie indie imprint Hobbledehoy to re-release Waking Season as a deluxe double vinyl to tie-in with the band's debut tour. But Groundhog Day this isn't for the quintet, with Jamieson admitting that reliving this music is a joy.

“It's like multiple Waking Seasons, it just keeps rising,” he chuckles. “[The record] was kinda a crossroad for us because we'd done everything ourselves up to that point, and we were proud with what we had done, but when it came time to do that record we invested more work, more time, more everything into [its] creation. To see it get recitation with the release in Australia and getting people to experience it for the first time, it brings us back to the moment [when] we were creating the record, and it was a great time for us so it's nice to revisit it.”

The strength of these songs also stands as a fitting tribute to their former bass player Chris Friedrich, who tragically passed away last year, aged 32.

“His spirit is imbued in every piece of music we've done up until now, and always will be, but in a different way,” says Jamieson. “We know when Chris was with us we channelled his energy and his presence into the music from his contributions; now that he's no longer with us, we have our memories of him, and they're all beautiful and wonderful and they're things we use in a different way towards the music – we'll see when we start writing this summer. But every show that we've played without him, pretty much every moment, we feel his presence all the time, and we want to make the band succeed for him especially.”

Jamieson says that Caspian have trouble writing between tours, preferring instead to assimilate back into normal life before they begin work on a record. But having already written the majority of one new song, the group are ahead of their standard curve, and with nothing extensive on the horizon following this Australian tour, a new album could become a reality before the year is out.

“The talk around the campfire from everyone right now is that we'd kinda like to get back into heavier music a little bit,” reveals Jamieson. “We'll see though – before we started Waking Season we wanted to just totally get rid of guitars all together, and of course there's [still] lots of guitars on the record, so there's certain things you can't detach from. When it comes to creating, we try to throw dogma out the window; we try to make it as pure a process as possible, whatever feels right, whatever sounds right, and we try to follow that.”