}

Thursday, May 22, 2014

NZMM Day 22 – Avalanche City


Featured today is Avalanche City, a folk/pop band from Auckland.

Avalanche City was originally a solo project of Dave Baxter, who later recruited bandmates after he released his first album, Our New Life Above The Ground. He originally released the album as a free download (sound familiar yet?), but after 10,000 copies had been downloaded, he took it offline in order to sell it.

The first single from the album, “Love Love Love” (2011, above), debuted at Number One on the New Zealand singles charts, even without much airplay. The next week, it was top of the airplay charts, too. Within four weeks, it had gone Gold. It also went to Number 49 in Australia.

The next single from the album was “Ends in the Ocean” (below). It’s the first video in which Dave Baxter appears, though it was posted to YouTube before “Love Love Love” (which may not mean anything). The single didn’t chart.



The third single from the debut album, “Sunset” (2012, below), also didn't chart.



Our New Life Above The Ground reached Number 4 on the NZ album chart, and Number 97 in Australia. Since the album was released, Avalanche City has been touring and, from the photos posted to their website, they appear to be working on a new album.

Their songs sound kind of summery to me, though I can’t put my finger on quite why that is. Maybe it’s because I heard “Love Love Love” on the radio a lot while I was driving around. It is a good road trip song, come to think of it.

Here’s a little trivia: I know several people who misheard the lyrics on “Love Love Love”, thinking it said “I heard your heart saying/blah, blah, blah,” which is really kind of funny, as such things are.

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