Album Notes

The Aerial Maps – In the Blinding Sunlight

\"Adam Gibson looks set to join the ranks of fine Australian storytellers such as Paul Kelly and Mick Thomas\" - Sunday Telegraph, Sydney

Moments, sounds, faces, voices ... the fragments of experience that stick in the mind for whatever reason, the things retained as memories from life\'s mess of movement – from passing through a small town without a set of traffic lights, from the person you met in the early hours of a coastal night at least a decade ago, from mysteries heard about at some indeterminate point in London or maybe just dreamt of in Brisbane.

I remember everything

Influenced by the bright landscapes described by Australian bands like the Triffids, the Go-Betweens, Weddings Parties Anything and Not Drowning Waving, The Aerial Maps is the creation of Sydney musician, writer and performer Adam Gibson.

Gibson, whose first novel manuscript was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Award and formerly bassist/songwriter of the band Modern Giant – an outfit which combined Adam\'s unique storytelling with guitar pop songs – has now taken his musical path an exciting step forward with the debut album from The Aerial Maps.

In the Blinding Sunlight is an album that resonates with the bright light, heat and distance of Australia, with the sound of wheels that have covered many kilometres, with all the accumulated memories of a life spent constantly moving around this country and the world.

These are songs which unashamedly celebrate Australian lives and Australian stories. Not in a sense of glib nationalism, but in a way that attempts to paint the stories of our lives as equally important as those we so regularly hear about in London or New York or LA.

\"Broken Hill or Ballina are just as important as, say, the Bronx, in my opinion, so I wanted to try to give a sense of due credence to those places and that idea,\" Gibson says.

\"And there\'s nothing like the light and heat of Australia and yet there is also a darkness behind all of that … where do those empty roads go, who is watching you as you swim at an empty beach?\"

With like-minded people on board – Simon Holmes, former main man for the revered band The Hummingbirds, Adam\'s brother Simon Gibson, plus Andy Meehan and singer/novelist Lucy Lehmann on board, In the Blinding Sunlight is a compelling and unique work. (Simon Holmes also produced the album)

The album invites the listener on a journey on long roads to empty towns, to forgotten cake shops and the loves you lost somewhere. It\'s hot or it\'s cold, it\'s crowded or it\'s empty ... but seen from above, seen from an aerial view, it all somehow makes a form of sense. The Aerial Maps connect the dots between all of that and more.