Introducing: The Maple Trail
March 19th, 2012 • Introducing
Sydney / Blue Mountains based The Maple Trail is the project of Aidan Roberts, who’s been writing and recording under this particular guise for a good few years it seems – TMT’s just released album, “Cable Mount Warning”, is the outfit’s third.
Much like fellow Aussies The Sleepy Jackson, for example, the dynamic in the group appears to be one with Roberts very much at its helm, playing most instruments on the recordings (everything from vocals to celtic drums to wine glasses, he declares) and appearing as a solitary figure in the press shots, with other musicians dipping in and out and contributing various parts on certain tracks.
We came across the band very recently, and one track off the aforementioned album, “Highwire”, jumped up like a high speed bowling delivery that pitches on a bit of rough, before hitting us hard on the proverbial helmet.
Roberts has cited Bryter Later by the late Nick Drake as an inspiration, and there’s certainly something of him here in this slice of dreamy, summery and uplifting folk, and we can also hear bits of more contemporary artists such as Kings Of Convenience, Bon Iver and Broken Social Scene – the horns that kick in initially on 00:37 (before coming back triumphantly later) take us back to the BSS’ glorious 7/4 Shoreline. If it’s up your alley, check out the rest of the album here.
