This has been a good year so far for Vancouver’s four-piece adventurous roots-rock band the Nautical Miles.
The band recently finished recording its new full-length album, Ode to Joy, with Polaris Prize shortlisted producer Jesse Gander (Japandroids, The Pack AD).
They premiered the album live at a sold-out show as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival on Jan. 25. That same week, their new single, Mythmaker, debuted at No. 1 on CBC Radio 3’s chart show, The R3-30.
The band will spend much of April touring around B.C., including a stop on the sixth at the Cumberland Hotel, followed by a house concert April 7 on Hornby Island.
While the performance in the Comox Valley will be the second stop of the tour, it will also be a hometown show of sorts for drummer Lucas Schuller, who has been living in Merville since last June.
“I’ve spent a lot of time traveling to and from Vancouver for rehearsals and recordings and shows over the last few months, so I’m really looking forward to having the guys come up here to play,” says Schuller.
Schuller, along with bassist Simon Rotheisler, steel-guitar ace Tim Tweedale, and singer-songwriter Corbin Murdoch will play material from the band’s four previous albums released under the name Corbin Murdoch & the Nautical Miles, as well as brand new songs from the Nautical Miles’ Ode to Joy.
The new album was written by Murdoch during a residency at the Bruno Arts Bank in Bruno, Sask., after he had spent six months travelling around the world visiting music and arts festivals everywhere from Timbuktu, Mali to Bogota, Colombia.
While it doesn’t borrow much musically from the places he visited, Murdoch was inspired by the optimism he encountered.
As Murdoch says, “This album is about joyful rebellion and taking the future back from those that tell us that it doesn’t exist.”
The Nautical Miles play April 6 at the Cumberland Hotel. For more information, visit www.cumberlandhotel.ca or phone 250-336-8844.
— Nautical Miles
