English duo Two Circles return with the release of their sun-drenched new anthem ‘Morning Song’, taken from their stunning self-titled second and final album, which will be released on October 18th.
Speaking of the track, Nick de Grunwald says “We wanted to start the album with a happy song, and ‘Morning Song’ celebrates the light, the sea and the excitement of meeting someone.”
The upcoming self-titled album is the follow up to 2018’s ‘The Underworld & You’, which as well as being favourably reviewed, spawned the song ‘Lodestar’ which received airplay on BBC 6 Music where it was described as “gorgeous” by musician and DJ Tom Robinson.
In the late summer of 2018, father and son Nick and Noah de Grunwald demoed songs with recording engineer Brian Adams locally in West Sussex, working up full arrangements and polished studio performances with musician, arranger, producer and engineer James Grantham.
Of their eight songs for the second album, the duo recorded two covers, both transforming the versions by the original artists. ‘Holocene’ by Bon Iver they retitled ‘Highway Aisle’, and whereas the Van Morrison song ‘Starting A New Life’ from his 1971 classic ‘Tupelo Honey’ kept its name, Two Circles changed the tempo, key and some of the lyrics. Nick and Noah had to submit their version to the great man for his permission to release it, and that Van gave his approval was a feather in Two Circles’ cap.
“The on-paper weirdness of making music with my dad is massively outweighed by the ease with which we just fall into these ideas,” Noah says. “Often he’ll make a suggestion about a song that I play him that I’m extremely proud of, and it’ll annoy me at the time because I think the song’s finished. But then almost always I’ll realise after about a month he’s right.”
Prior to Two Circles, Nick made two albums on his own as Channel D –‘Mosaic Of Disarray‘(2013) and ‘Unravelling’ (2016). Teaming up with his son steered his music away from dark, brooding soundscapes and towards something altogether brighter and imbued with a sense of harmony.
Some bonds are unbreakable, and in Nick & Noah the new album is further proof that magic flows through these genes. ‘Two Circles’ is a sign off in beautiful style – and one that will continue to cast an enchanting spell for years to come.
