Dandelion Wine's latest album "All Becompassed By Stars" takes the increased energy and danceability of 2008's "Selected Anachronisms" to our new level of intensity, whilst simultaneous featuring some of the band's most ethereal and beautiful work to date. The result is an album of extremes, with a distinct dichotomy between the pounding beats of songs such as "Gravity" and the delicate acoustic flourishes of "Early Warning Sign" or the ambient textures of "Seven Times As Bright". However, even amid the most intense songs, the band's trademark use of medieval and world instruments is still clearly evident, with dulcimers, bell cittern and flutes ringing out over the fat analogue synths, big beats and cranked guitars. While the band have frequently flirted with non-western rhythms over the years, on "All Becompassed By Stars" these rhythms come to the fore, with layers of Indian, Middle Eastern and African percussion driving many of the songs. Adding to the Australian duo's usual array of unconventional instrumentation are the bell cittern (a late-medieval 12 string instrument akin to the mandolin) and sansula (a German variation of the African kalimba or thumb piano). Perhaps the biggest change in approach for this album is simply one of location and environment. While all previous Dandelion Wine releases were recorded in the band's hometown of Melbourne, Australia (with "Selected Anachronisms" being recorded in the middle of a particularly intense Australian summer), "All Becompassed By Stars" was recorded in the snow Berlin winter. The duo set up a temporary studio in an apartment in Kreuzberg in Berlin's inner west and proceeded to record the album surrounded by snow and ice with a frozen canal just out the window - a far cry from the orange glow of bushfire that hangs over Melbourne in recent summers. Also impacting on the writing and recording of this album is the three years of near constant touring that Dandelion Wine have been doing since the release of 2006's “An Inexact Science”. With numerous tours through Australia, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, France, UK, Portugal and Switzerland, the band's live shows have been growing steadily more intense and this is reflected in increased energy and manic guitar work of tracks such as "Gravity", "Shards" and "Nowhere".
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