Belfast’s Heliopause released their first album ‘Walk Into The Sea’ earlier this month. You should listen to it, and maybe even buy it.
Belfast’s Heliopause released their first album ‘Walk Into The Sea’ earlier this month. I don’t think they’d be offended if we described them as sparse, lo-fi, alternative shoegaze folk, since those are the tags on their bandcamp page. You should listen to it, and maybe even buy it.
Heliopause were formed in late 2005 by filmmaker Richard Davis and Tracer AMC guitarist Michael Kinloch, and supported some really good bands in Belfast (Jeffrey Lewis, Quasi, Gravenhurst, Frightened Rabbit).
Richie went to live in Berlin, Michael was replaced by Chris McCorry of Before Machines, and the band released the Dark Matter EP in 2008. In 2009 they rented a house in the Antrim hills and wrote new songs, resulting in the Mon Peu Rimbaud / Moment of Recognition single (which saw the band compared to “Muse meets Enya” by the Big Issue and sold out fast, although I don’t think these facts are related).
They recorded some more songs at Start Together in Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre that summer and Richard moved to Brighton and I moved to rural north Wales and the band lost all momentum, desperately trying to claw some back with the free Let The Silence Go EP. Since all the songs from this EP are on the album, it is no longer available. The band recently recorded live acoustic sessions for BBC Radio Foyle and BBC Radio 1 in Northern Ireland, where the hot chocolate is delicious. Between November 2007 and June 2009, Heliopause unforgivably played 22 shows without leaving Belfast.
This Heliopause is not to be confused with the dreadful instrumental funk band of the same name. I wish they didn’t exist.
[youtube url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hXdNjuJeqo&rel=0 ]
Buy the album in the format of your choice from http://heliopause.bandcamp.com
