Listen: Into Orbit - Gilgamesh (UTR Premiere)

Wellington experimental rock duo Into Orbit are steadily working towards the release of their sophomore album and in anticipation they are letting loose brand new single 'Gilgamesh'. The new record (which according to drummer Ian Moir will be available in the next three to six months) is the follow up to the pair's debut Caverns that was unleashed back in 2014 to rave reviews. Get a taste of what to expect from the forthcoming album and sink your teeth into 'Gilgamesh' right here, and while you do that read our interview with Moir below...

So Ian, what is a Gilgamesh??

Gilgamesh is the name of the handsome fellow on the tour poster. He's the main character in a 4000 year-old Sumerian poem called The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is considered the earliest surviving 'great work of literature'. It's basically the Noah's Ark narrative of the great flood. It's not totally confirmed if he was an actual person, but scholars think he probably was a Sumerian king who reigned around 2500BC.

Can you tell us a little bit about the track and how it all came together?

This track basically appeared in real time during one of our improvised jams last year. We spend quite a bit of time just improvising freely, not strictly the type of stuff we want to do as a band... but we often come up with a few parts that we later build on and turn into songs. Gilgamesh however, came together on the spot as a whole piece with every part conceived in order, in the moment. I don't think we were putting much thought into it at the time, which is probably how it turned out the way it did... it's a song we could never have just sat down and tried to write. We spent the next few months listening back to the improvised recording and learning the parts as closely as possible, with some tidying up in a couple of spots. We still go back and listen to the original sometimes ... it's quite amazing how similar it is to the final version.

Your first album Caverns took quite a long time to get down, how is the recording process different this time around?

Haha, it's not really different at all, other than the fact that we now know how we work and don't try to rush ourselves. The only way we seem to be able to get what we want out of recordings is by dragging the process on for months, recording dozens of versions of everything and endlessly picking apart every small detail. We can easily spend a few months deciding if a particular part should be recorded at 182bpm or 181bpm.

When can we expect the record to hit the shelves?

Between about 3 and 6 months. We still have more recording to do and some decisions to make. We are pretty determined to put this album out on vinyl, particularly so because it has some amazing Nick Keller artwork that absolutely has to be printed on a vinyl sleeve. If we just put it out digitally and on CD we could have it out much sooner than if we wait until the vinyl is available.

Into Orbit have a four-date tour lined up kicking off this Friday 8th July at Valhalla in Wellington, see below for more dates and details.