Premiere: Deer Park Surface With New Single 'Birthdays'

It's been awhile since we've heard from Auckland-formed outfit Deer Park. The trio released their excellent debut album Walk Into The Sea back in 2010 and became a firm fixture on the local live scene before being divided due to geographical differences. But to our delight, the group have been quietly toiling away on their sophmore record, from which they are unveiling gorgeous lead single 'Birthdays'. Take a listen to the track below while you read our yarn with Shangai-based bandmember Nick Walsh...

Hey Nick! Deer Park's debut album was released in 2010, and now you’ve got a new album ready to come out! Can you tell us a bit about it and how it came together?

Absolutely! Yeah, a long time between drinks for sure. We recorded the majority of the album in flats and practice spaces around Auckland in 2014/2015. I moved to Shanghai in 2015 and the album was then pieced together and mixed by Shannon and myself. When we felt like we’d gotten the record as far as we could, we passed it on to Djeisan Suskov for some final production work and mastering. The album is basically a combination of songs we honed in a live setting with the full band in Auckland, and songs that Shannon and I have worked on together via email/file sharing.

The song you're sharing today is ‘Birthdays’ which is a really rich, textural affair. What’s it about?

It’s about ageing, and how quickly birthdays can become dreaded occasions spent fretting over all the social “milestones” (marriage, a house, money, etc.) you haven’t achieved yet. It’s about the perils of subscribing to the concept that life should be some kind of upward trajectory – a ladder to be climbed. For most of us, it’s is a lot less linear, more chaotic, and hopefully more fulfilling.

You recently uploaded a rather intriguing painting as the band FB profile, is that the album artwork?

The image accompanying 'Birthdays' is a painting by New Zealand artist Arie Hellendoorn. When we were mixing the album, we used his work as a kind of touchstone for what we wanted the album to sound like. Later we reached out to him and he very kindly let us use two of his pieces for the album. The one used for 'Birthdays' is not the album cover though.

When can we expect the album to drop…. And will it be followed by some live shows?

We don’t have a release date for the album just yet but we’ll be releasing songs steadily until we figure out how it’s gonna come out. Shannon is coming over to Shanghai this week to work on new music and play some shows. We’ll be playing a Deer Park show with our OG drummer Mark Brendorffer (aka Mild America) in Shanghai next month. NZ release shows are still very much up in the air at the moment but we’re hoping to put something really cool and unique together!