The ‘Australia Restless’ album launch tour

The “Australia Restless” Tour
Adam Gibson and The Ark-Ark Birds

“Adam Gibson’s work reminds me of the best films by David Caesar
(Mullet, Prime Mover); vernacular widescreen Australia with no gloss,
a sense of melancholy, a road well-travelled.”
– Chris Johnston, The Age

Having forged a unique path with his spoken/sung tales of Australian life and landscape over two acclaimed albums with The Aerial Maps (plus earlier outfit Modern Giant), Adam Gibson and his new band The Ark-Ark Birds are pleased to announce an Australian tour to herald the release of new album ‘Australia Restless’.

The first leg of the tour will hit Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, with Adam and the Ark-Ark Birds diving into the widescreen panorama of songs on “Australia Restless” plus some Aerial Maps and Modern Giant favourites. These are stories about of loves, lives and houses lost … of coastal nights and desert days, obscure towns linked by empty roads and the static of AM radio crackling through damaged car speakers.

The new album sees Adam chasing a true sense of Australia, trying to get under the country’s skin and tell a version of its story. “There’s a restlessness in the heart of many Australians; a need to move, to shift, to see different scenes, new horizons, better places,” says Adam. “Lured by the road or simply influenced by the great weight of our land, we strike out for sunlit fields, small town pubs, empty beaches, the black miles of bitumen. It’s an urge to feel the land, to know it. It’s a psychological yearning: I call it ‘Australia Restless’ … and I have it bad.”

Through his life and travels, Adam – who’s father Bob incidentally was the musical arranger of the iconic ‘Happy Little Vegemites’ tune – has sought to articulate this sense of Australia. In research for the writing of the Aerial Maps’ second album, Adam drove solo coast-to-coast across Australia and the earlier manuscript for his first novel was shortlisted for the Australian Vogel Award.

“Australia Restless” was co-written with his brother Simon Gibson and produced by former Hummingbirds main man Simon Holmes. With a full band featuring some of Sydney’s finest musos, Adam and The Ark-Ark Birds will launch the album in Brisbane at the Junk Bar on May 9, in Melbourne at the Yarra Hotel on May 16 and in Sydney at the Vanguard on May 17.

The Australia Restless Tour
Brisbane
The Junk Bar – Saturday, May 9 (supports TBA)

Tickets: http://tickets.oztix.com.au/?Event=51078

Melbourne
Yarra Hotel – Saturday, May 16  (Supported by the Danny Walsh Banned)
Sydney
The Vanguard – Sunday, May 17 (supported by Mick Thomas)

Tickets: http://www.thevanguard.com.au/shows/2015/05/17/adam-gibsons-album-launch/12926

Critical acclaim for Adam and/or The Aerial Maps

 “Adam Gibson writes from the heart, from the street, about the place that moves him most. Ripper real words that are well worth checking out.”

– Peter Garrett

 “[The Sunset Park] is so finely drawn that is like a screenplay for your mind …
an Australian classic. You must hear it.”

– Noel Mengel, Courier-Mail, Brisbane

“The Aerial Maps are surely headed for that esteemed space occupied by Australia’s finest – those whose music is Australia.”

–Justin Grey, Drum Media, Sydney

For media and other enquiries: 

Graham Ashton @ Footstomp Music asho@footstompmusic.com

Album on its way – soon

Still ironing out a few details, but my new album is still expected out soon. In the next coupla months. Stay tuned. 

Tracks include ‘Australia Restless’, ‘Long Time Dead’, ‘Ode to a Cup of Tea’ and ‘The Years When Nobody Cared What You Did’ (the latter of which relates to the photo below – the years of Valiant car trips up the coast and a sense of Australian freedom which now seems curtailed).