Hi everyone, Thomas Widter here. As was mentioned earlier in the week, the band I am with, A Better Sun, are involved with the Whyte and Mackay whisky podcasts running on iTunes (and elsewhere) at the moment. Knowing I’m a keen whisky lover, Richard said I could drop by the blog and say a few words about the band, our new album Universal Ones and give you a link to a free download, so slainte Richard!
The band might be based in Austria, but that hasn’t kept the band members from being huge whisky fans. Well, at least the majority of the band members are!
A Better Sun came together in 2007, when I moved to the town of Linz and got re-acquainted to Sarah, the band’s voice. Hubert, the guitarist, loves Vienna to much to live anywhere else, so he recorded many guitar parts on his own and sent them to the Linz-based recording studio over the internet.
I think the music we create is essentially pop, as far as genre is concerned. We do try to use different styles, however, to come up with different types of arrangements and sounds in order to keep our music interesting and fresh.
Sarah feels the emotional content is even more important than the songs’ sonic styles. She told me: “Many of our songs deal with topics like love and loneliness, with the longing for something familiar. The human condition is a complex one, and life can be hard sometimes. We try to let that frailty come through in our music.
“Despite that, I also think our music is very powerful. That’s because you have do deal with the problems that life presents you with. You can’t run away from them – you need to find new and innovative ways to live instead. There’s a lot of power in that kind of creativity.
The album is a little bit like a theatre play. In theatre, what makes a play it interesting is the costume changes. On Universal Ones we have tried to take on different musical styles, while maintaining our A Better Sun trademarks, like my singing, Hubert’s guitars, and Thomas’ rather classic approach to songwriting. Changing your musical style during the course of an album is quite like changing your costume during a theater play. It’s a lot of fun.”
Universal Ones is A Better Sun’s first studio album. It is available in the iTunes store. You can pre-listen all tracks for free on the band’s website. You can also download A Better Sun’s first single “Shine Your Love On Me” for free here
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Tags: a better sun, Whisky Shops
Hi folks,
just dropped by and wanted to say that:
a) I own the record and – it’s great! Although “Shine Your Love On Me” is not my favourite song of the album it’s still great. (try “Where The Rainbow Ends” or “The Universal One” for example)
The video – phew – what to say: Love it. The colour-changes are not new, but very well made. Nice to watch, easy to understand and the endig … I really, really like it! (I did not see that coming).
As for Sarah – I know that she’s a great actress (I had the pleasure to work with her) but I did not know that she is also a very talented director and cutter! Congrats! More of it!!!!