Bananagun - Why is the Colour of the Sky? (Opaque Red Vinyl)
‘Keeping Company’ captures the essence of more than 20 years of close collaboration between two kindred spirits - pianist Bill Laurance and Michael League on oud and fretless bass. And it's kind of the antithesis of the multi-GRAMMY winning band Snarky Puppy, who brought them both to worldwide fame.
As a duo, Laurance and League prove to be masters of atmosphere and darkly shimmering timbres, refined songwriters with a fine sense for clear, memorable melodies and improvisers who are so familiar with each other that it only takes a few notes to tell stories together.
To say that the intervening four years since the arrival of their debut album had been tumultuous for Melbourne / Naarm’s Bananagun would be an understatement. Released during the height of lockdown in the summer of 2020, the group were forcibly ‘scattered’ following the release of ‘The True Story of Bananagun’. Australia’s ultra-strict lockdown rules - declaring it illegal to travel beyond a 5km radius - made it nigh on impossible for the band to get together at all, with the only rehearsals requiring them to sneak past military checkpoints undetected.
