New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Manchester alt-rock band THE MAPLE STATE are extremely pleased to announce their long-overdue return with their new album The Things I Heard At The Party, their first new material in 10 years, set for release in 2018 on Far Out Records.
The band are streaming the title track from the record in full today:
https://soundcloud.com/faroutrecordings/the-maple-state-the-things-i-heard-at-the-party
Commenting on the new song, front man Greg Counsell said: "In 2014 I was listening to a lot of folk music and I became obsessed with harmonics and drones, the idea that a single note can continue through an entire song just fascinated me. 'The Things I Heard At The Party' was my first conscious attempt to write a song with only a single note. I was trying to harness some early punk energy, something akin to The
Clash circa '77, but once the other guys got involved the purity of this idea was smoothed over as they added their own take on things.
"My friend and I had recently found ourselves at a Halloween party in a Sloane
Square penthouse where the host sat wearing a neck brace at a blackjack table in his dining room. I don't quite remember how we ended up there, partying with the offspring of the global super rich, but it was a lyrical goldmine. I made a note of conversations and the weirder things people said to me. I like the idea that a song that grew out of my desire to write folk music ended up telling the story of people (most probably) diametrically opposed to those ideas."
Since playing their last gigs in the summer of 2008, the remaining members of The Maple
State have followed very different and distinct paths. For a number of years Greg continued to write and perform music under the name
Ghost Saddles and occasionally wandered off to South
America where he worked in wildlife conservation, but he now works as a Conservation Biologist in the north of England. His brother and the band's bass player, Christian, became involved in a European Space Agency environmental project, which took him to Copenhagen where he now lives with his girlfriend, whilst guitarist Richard Higginbottom works as a University Lecturer and publishes photography books through Tide Press, the publishing company he established in 2015.
While the band always remained in contact with each other, the idea to reform The Maple
State only occurred during Christmas 2015 when Richard and Christian overheard some new song ideas Greg had been working on. Despite living in different countries, they decided to develop these songs together, as eventually their recordings became the album The Things I Heard At The Party.
Formed in 2004 in Manchester, UK after meeting at school and college, the band originally drew most of their inspiration from pioneering indie/emo bands like The Get Up Kids, The Promise Ring and American Football. Over the years extensive tours with Motion City Soundtrack, +44, Fightstar, Minus The Bear, Say Anything, The Academy Is… and Get cape. Wear cape. Fly. helped them to cement themselves as one of the UK's cult underground names in their scene.
The band recorded their earliest songs in a friend's bedroom and began touring the UK, with those songs eventually becoming their first EP titled At Least Until We've Settled In which was released by Punktastic Recordings in March 2005. In December that same year, The Maple
State flew out to
Chicago to record new material with Sean O'Keefe (Fall Out Boy) and Joshua Caine (Motion City Soundtrack), before signing with Manchester Indie label High
Voltage Sounds for their 2007 release, the
Joanna EP recorded with Andy Gill (Gang of Four, Killing Joke, Red Hot
Chili Peppers). Their follow up EP Say, Scientist was released on High
Voltage Sounds in February 2008 to consistently strong reviews from the likes of NME, Kerrang!, Rocksound,
Clash and many more.
New single 'The Things I Heard At The Party' is out now:
Bandcamp: https://themaplestate.bandcamp.com/
iTunes: https://tinyurl.com/themaplestatepartyitunes
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/themaplestatepartyspotify
Further details and UK live dates TBA
