Album Notes

Ptarmigan is a modern post-rock band the formed in Columbia, Missouri in 2007. Evan Walton, Peter Marting, and Ted Carstensen create intricate, powerful explosions from simple folk roots and catchy melodies over levels of ambiance. Their debut album "Our Ancient Friends" was released April 18, 2009.

Walton, guitar, and Marting, bass, share vocal and songwriting duties on the 11 track album. Walton’s high pitched vocals match the playfulness of Daniel Smith’s voice with the delivery of Grizzly Bear’s Edward Droste. Marting contrasts with deeper, fragile vocals, highlighted in tracks such as “Stars on Patrol” and “Hydroelectric Power Commission: Fear Holds Us Back”.

All three students at the University of Missouri, the band mates were separated just a few months after their formation. Marting headed off to study the flora and fauna in Australia and New Zealand, while Walton studied in St. Andrews, Scotland for a semester. Though physically separated, the band shared their new songs and material through their blog, “the concern”.

Once reunited in June 2008, the trio blended the influences they’d collected from three continents to form the sound for their first album. With both songwriters studying biology, the album finds itself infused with geological and nature references. Marting penned “Thylacine” about a venture into the wilderness of Australia to find a marsupial wolf believed to be extinct since 1936 - but has sightings reported regularly.

Themes of isolation and vulnerability in the songwriting are accompanied by imagery of exotic, desolate scenery. But that’s not to say this is an album of particular loneliness - instead - the sights and senses experienced in nature provide a comforting connection to all those before who’d seen the same sights and breathed the same air. “Barely standing by the north sea my ancient friends are all waking up” Walton writes in “Lord Who Built This House.”

The music on Our Ancient Friends sees influences from bands such as Grizzly Bear and “This is a Long Drive With Nothing To Think About”-era Modest Mouse. The album features inspired drumming from Carstensen, best documented on songs “Hydroelectric Power Commission: Fear Holds Us Back” and “Thylacine”.

The album was recorded in Columbia, MO at Centro Cellar Studios with Wil Reeves - a musician in bands: Bochman, Cabin Sessions and Penny Marvel.