Wanderloss

The High Dials venture out and
look within on Moon Country

COMINGS AND GOINGS: The High Dials

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“It’s a line from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, describing the dunes next to the ocean. It’s a book that deals with time and loneliness,” says Trevor Anderson, explaining the title of the High Dials’ new record, Moon Country. “I just liked the phrase—a place without people, an empty undulating landscape, a state of mind which is the edge of things. It’s about standing on the beach and looking out at the ocean and the ocean represents this unknown place.”

Moon Country is awash with melancholy and longing, familiar emotional terrain to followers of the High Dials, accompanied as always by clever but heartfelt lyrics and gorgeous classic pop melodies. Produced by Mountain City Studios’ Joseph Donovan, the record has a psychedelic sheen influenced not so much by the ’60s but by early-’90s shoegazing and the back catalogue of Creation Records, as well as the epic meltdowns of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, with whom the High Dials toured the U.K. in support of 2005’s War of the Wakening Phantoms (BJM leader Anton Newcombe has called the High Dials “the best band in North America”).

Since then, the High Dials have experienced significant upheaval in their ranks. Bassist and founding member Rishi Dhir left the fold, as did drummer Robb Surridge, leaving Anderson and guitarist Robbie MacArthur with half a band. Bassist Seamus Cowan is the latest recruit, joining new drummer Max Hebert and keyboardist/backing vocalist Eric Dougherty.

Despite these changes, which required a lengthy break in both touring and recording, the band continued to move forward, playing loads of shows as well as writing and demoing new material. Travel was Anderson’s main inspiration, whether with the band or on his own in Ireland, Colombia and Argentina.

“Most of these songs were written on the road,” says Anderson. “This record is very much about being dislocated, being at a transition point, letting go of something in the past and moving into something new. It’s a very lonely feeling ’cause you don’t know where you’re going. All you know for sure is where you came from, and that you can’t go back.”

Luckily, Anderson made it back home, in the literal sense at least, after a brush with death in Colombia. “I was going to this remote island and the only way to get there is in this tiny ferry,” he recalls. “The ocean looked quite calm when we were heading out at dawn, but as we got further out, the waves became enormous and the boat took on all this water and almost capsized. With the look of fear on people’s faces and all the screams, I realized that I could drown right now and this could be a tiny little paragraph on the back page of The Gazette, which no one would notice—‘Montrealer dies in ferry crossing’.”

Apart from this one incident, Anderson’s largely had positive, life-affirming experiences on the road, from meeting his hero Ray Davies at a High Dials show with Neko Case in London to speaking to strangers in transit, soaking up wisdom by stepping outside of his comfort zone.

“I’ve only ever really met incredible people in my travels. I always come home feeling good about humanity. I think we’re doing okay, there’s hope for us.”