Today sees the release of a brand new album from Cape Town’s greatest musical export, Beatenberg. Their 3rd studio album, The Great Fire of Beatenberg is out today via Leafy Outlook.
Now living between London and Berlin, their new offering is the trio’s first album in five years. As has often been the case, frontman Matthew Field began many of the songs in various home studio setups, followed by three weeks of recording in Cape Town and Johannesburg with UK producer Tom Staffordat Milestone Studios, Sunset Recording Studios and Jazzworx.
Back in London, Matt joined forces with fellow band member Ross Dorkin, and together as producers they did a considerable amount of extra recording and production for the album. The album was mixed by Nathan Boddy (Mura Masa, PinkPantheress, Gabriels).
The band have been enjoying success for the best part of a decade. After the group’s debut album, 2014’s The Hanging Gardens of Beatenberg was released, they broke radio chart records and won numerous awards which led to worldwide touring with performances on Later with Jools Holland and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
This exposure led to signing a deal with Island Records UK with whom they released their second album, 2018’s 12 Views of Beatenberg.
The Great Fire of Beatenberg is the group’s first offering since ‘On the way to Beatenberg’, a post-pandemic EP that reconnected the band musically for the first time since they took a hiatus in 2018.
Their reformation last year was a success. Pitchfork wrote they were sounding “wiser, softer, and as virtuosic as ever.” They sold out their first headline tour of Europe and the US, culminating in a performance at SXSW in March 2023.
Matthew Field from Beatenberg comments
“In a continuing and open-ended definition of ‘Beatenberg’ as some kind of ‘place’, the album name references the Great Fire of London, the climate and geopolitical anxieties of our time, the hellish feeling that can sometimes define long processes such as making an album, tracks as fire, fire of passion and fire of renewal – fynbos, perhaps.”
Featuring a broad emotional range of songs, the album features some sad songs, some silly songs and an exciting new collaboration – “Branches On A Tree” which was co-written and produced by Sun-El Musician.
The Great Fire Of Beatenberg Tracks explained by Matthew Field
1. “Branches On A Tree”
“This started with an idea that Sun El Musician shared with me shortly after I moved to London. I love the warmth of his harmonic sensibility, and this song demonstrates that. The tree in the chorus I imagine as one I used to drive past in Cape Town and marvel at every time.”
2. “Eau de Toilette”
“Eau de Toilette, toilet water. What can I say? Sweating – I was a bit embarrassed about these lyrics, but maybe that’s a good sign. You can’t always be safely in your tower of song, sometimes you have to come down to earth to receive human warmth and humiliation. At least the song itself is warm and humble.”
3. “Gold Mine”
“I wrote this song while back in Cape Town in December 2022. I like the contrast between acoustic guitars and the more synthetic drums, and the different ways you can feel the rhythm.”
“When I first sang the line the idea of myself as a ‘gold mine’ was comforting and validating but then considering the history of mining it became a more complicated and interesting analogy. I imagine a dry landscape throughout.”
4. “Worth More”
“This song was written with my dear friend and frequent collaborator, the one and only Tresor. The three repeats of the chorus create an interesting structure. I don’t have a shirt with parakeet buttons but I would wear such a thing.”
5. “When I Fall Asleep”
“This is actually the oldest song on the album, I think – one of two songs that I wrote with the line ‘when I fall asleep’. Sleeping is something I find myself mentioning often, I think? I had just read the book ‘Passage to India’. I imagine the character in the album in a hotel room, reading and then drifting off mid-sentence.”
6. “Chorus of May”
“I have no idea what these lyrics are about, nor can I say what the Chorus of May is, nor even what the ‘it’ is that is not the Chorus of May. May is autumn in the southern hemisphere, where this song was written, but I associate the song with spring. The chorus was written a long time ago, but the verse is newer.”
7. “Wheelbarrow”
“This is another one with Tresor. It’s been lying around for some time and I’m happy it’s found a way out into the world. It can be thought of as a gardener’s love song.”
8. “Bath Towels”
“This began as a Zoom co-write with Jonathan Quarmby during lockdown. Unusually, the first lyrics you hear were written apart from the music – I chose the title ‘Bath Towels’ and gave myself a few minutes to write a short poem type thing, which I then sung over the chord progression and somehow it easily fit. The words on the sundial I had actually seen in real life, I didn’t make them up.”
9. “I’ll Be There”
“Originally a pitch for the Lion King movie, I didn’t think this would work as a band song, but I felt it was strong in some way. I thought initially that I’d have to change the lyrics if I was going to use the song myself, but I realised I didn’t have to.”
10. “Don’t Call Her Over To You”
“The song was written across a significant period of time – like an old building, if you look at it closely you can discern three separate sections dating to three different periods.”
“The title line occurred to me when I was thinking about the effects of emotional reliance on someone, and how what is given freely should maybe not always be taken as freely. The bridge is an image whose origin I can’t remember. The whole song seems to be addressed to the same person singing it.”
11. “3 Arts”
“The 3 Arts used to be a theatre and concert hall in the suburb I grew up in and was in a state of disrepair my whole childhood. At one time its front patio operated as a nursery for plants, at another time my dad used to buy used golf balls from somewhere in its depths, and I went to a punk gig there in high school.”
“Recently it was completely rebuilt or revamped as a shopping mall. Whatever we think about shopping malls, there is something comforting about it, like a kind of oasis.”
12. “Night Bus”
“The band wrote this song together and it’s one of the songs I love most on the album. It really sounds to me like nighttime. I love the rhythm and how it ploughs through the whole way.”
“When I was in Amsterdam for the first time I took a bus at night, and then went to Berlin and wrote an attempt at a poem I called ‘Nachtbus’ and that’s where I got the title idea from.”
13. “Green Bird”
“This was originally written for a student film. Ross helped give it a new structure and feel in the second half. It feels like it captures what life was like for me at a certain time in Cape Town.”
You can stream / download the album HERE.
On The Great Fire Of Beatenberg, the band’s journey to rekindle their explosive mutual chemistry has come to fruition. Beatenberg are made up of Matthew Field (vocals and guitar), Robin Brink (drums), and Ross Dorkin (bass).
Matthew field has high expectations for the album
“I hope that putting out the work we’ve cared about and given our energy to will be of some benefit to someone somewhere sometime. Or something. I’m just as motivated as ever to put form to the feelings that I’ve had since I can remember, and to make music and word arrangements that I love.”
“I also remain grateful and am sporadically overcome by the way people have continued to connect with our music. I thank everyone for listening and responding in whatever way you have and continue to do.”
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